What Stays and What Fades Away
by loki-laufeyson-of-asgard
Summary: Sequel to Better to Reign in Hell than Serve in Heaven. Tony and Loki are now halfway through their senior year at Berkeley, but the memory of Thanos continues to haunt them, and Loki is afraid he won't ever shake it off. Cue surprise visits from unwelcome guests, more Shakespearean quotes, and the feeling of losing control for both Tony and Loki. Frostiron college AU.
1. The Devil's Last Stand

_Thanos' mouth is pressed against Loki's, the taste of cinnamon and apples rushing down into the back of his throat as their tongues run together. Loki grinds his crotch up against Thanos' in a desperate attempt at turning himself on—because honestly, he should be feeling _something, _right, this is sex, after all—but all he gets is the friction of denim on denim, and a slightly unpleasant burning ache in his lower thighs from having to move. Thanos moves his hands lower, nearer to Loki's hips, and Loki shifts, a flash of panic filling his chest._

"_Wait," he stumbles, while Thanos trails hot kisses down from his lips to his throat. "Wait, fuck, I can't—"_

"_You will do whatever I fucking tell you to," Thanos hisses, biting him roughly enough to draw blood, jerking his pants off with movements that are almost clumsy. "You got that?"_

_Loki just turns his head away, and Thanos gets a satisfied little smirk on his face. "Very good," he snarls, and there isn't anything Loki can do after that but wait._

The shrill ringing of the alarm clock jolts Loki awake from this latest nightmare—just one in a long line of many that have been coming and going for the past two years, ever since Thanos nearly killed Tony Stark before leaving Manhattan, dropping off everyone's radar. Automatically, he reaches behind him, feeling around for Tony's hand. He finds it immediately—draped loosely over his thin hip, fingers twitching equations in his sleep—and squeezes it. Tony shifts but does not wake up, and Loki is suddenly hyperaware of the smooth edges of the electromagnet pressing lightly against his back, of Tony's lips on his shoulder.

Sometimes he is shocked that they are still together, in the second half of their senior year at Berkeley; that they haven't been driven apart by their own arrogant attitudes or the frequent, often hair-raising, arguments they have. It isn't as if he hasn't thought of leaving—several times, he's contemplated how much easier it would be to just go back to living in the dorms, instead of in this apartment he and Tony are renting out now (courtesy of Howard Stark, who supplies the money every month in what both Loki and Tony view as an almost desperate attempt to buy his way back into his son's heart). There are moments when he hates Tony, when he's being sarcastic or snarky, still acting like feelings are a thing that everyone else has except him. There are moments when both of them push too far, and one of them ends up storming out, leaving the other to slam cabinet drawers and punch holes in the walls and, occasionally, smash entire bottles of whiskey.

But then there are moments when Loki looks over at Tony, when they're watching television or finishing up assignments or eating dinner, and he knows, he just _knows, _that this is the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with. It isn't like he says it very often, because he's no better at talking about his feelings than Stark is, but there is no mistaking that swell in his chest, that feeling like he'd lay his life down for Tony, like he can't fully control himself around the older man.

It's terrifying, really, to have his heart open so bare in Tony's hands, but mostly, Loki doesn't mind.

His alarm clock goes off again, and this time it wakes Tony as well. He shifts and groans, moving his hand from Loki's grasp so he can rub his eyes. "Morning already?" he asks, voice thick with sleep, yawning. "Did I even ever actually sleep, because I don't remember it."

"You slept," Loki assures him, half-smiling in the dim light coming in through their curtained window. He shifts too, moving closer to Tony, feeling the contact of their bare skin under the blankets. Tony lifts a hand to cup Loki's jaw, then frowns slightly. The filtered sunlight, combined with the glow of the electromagnet, is enough to make visible the swollen redness of Loki's eyes, the faint sheen of sweat still standing out on his forehead, the slowly fading light of panic leaving his irises.

"What?" Loki murmurs.

"You dreamed about him again, didn't you." It's a statement, not a question, unavoidable, and Loki sighs.

"I have not had a memory of Thanos for months now," he says, which is only half-true—he's not sleeping as well as he should be, and sometimes when he dozes off in class he has mini-dreams that are so realistic he wakes up gasping for air, everyone staring at him, pens poised over their papers.

Tony continues frowning, but doesn't press the issue. After a little while he gets up, swinging his legs over Loki's body and walking to the door.

"I'm going to take a shower," he says, and the smile is back, because he's venturing into territory with which he's a little more comfortable now. "You can join me if you want, Silvertongue." It's a nickname he gave Loki midway through their junior year, after the younger man got shitfaced at a frat party and starting bragging about the 'amazing fellatio' he could perform.

Loki rolls his eyes, but he's smiling too, the dream starting to fade as he climbs out of bed and walks out after his boyfriend, all lean sinew and catlike grace. It amazes him, still, how Tony's managed to make him get over what happened to him back in their sophomore year—although, admittedly, he's not as 'over it' as he'd like to be. There are times, even now, even two years later, when he smells a certain scent, or hears a certain noise, and flinches, expecting Thanos to appear out of nowhere with that wicked smile on his face, those dead eyes staring him down.

In the bathroom, with steam from the shower rising up around them and hot water sliding between their sweat-slick bodies, he fucks Tony against the slippery wall and focuses on the sounds coming from the physicist's throat, all pained and deep and wanting, and thinks, _I am not weak, I can still do this, and this, and this; I can still control it here._

/

Five hundred miles away, in a town so small it doesn't even appear on a map, doesn't even have ownership of a proper name, a man sits on the edge of a tattered sofa in a rickety old shack about two blocks from the town's only store, a run-down Wal-Mart. His face is thin, his cheekbones casting shadows under their sharp arches. His hair is a tangled, greasy mess, and there is a constant smell about him of something like rotten fruit and gasoline. In the room opposite where he is, a small television blares static over some soap opera—_Days of Our Lives, _or maybe _The Young and the Restless. _His hangover pounds in time with the couples on the show arguing.

"Amora," he calls, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Turn that shit down, okay?"

The volume decreases by maybe two points. "Better?" Amora calls back.

"Not really."

"Well, fuck you, then," she says, but she's smiling, he can hear it, and he's smiling too, a painful stretching of underworked facial muscles. He throws back the last few sips of his leftover alcohol—some cheap brand he got ten miles away from here, with a label that's already been rubbed off by his sweat—and stands, walks into the other room. His girlfriend is lounging on the loveseat, her feet sticking up in the air. She's watching her show between her legs, and the man pauses for maybe half a second to contemplate all the possibilities with this scenario before reaching over and switching off the set.

"Hey!" yelps Amora.

"I'm hungry," he says, and sits down. She rolls her eyes, pinches his arm.

"I'm not your slave," she says, but she gets up and walks into the kitchen. He hears her rustling around in their battered old refrigerator for a few seconds, then she calls:

"What do you want, beans or burgers or week-old sushi?"

He starts to say _nothing, _just to rile her up, but his stomach growls, echoing in the silence of their shack, and he clenches his teeth against the tugging pain of an empty gut.

"Hamburger would be okay."

She clangs around with a few pots before he hears the gas burner clicking, struggling against all forms of nature to turn itself on. Then there's the sound of oil splashing on metal, and the sizzling of meat. He smells animal fat and that spice she always uses, and his mouth starts watering.

"Hurry the fuck up," he says, only half joking.

"It'll get done when it gets done, Skurge," she replies.

_That's not my name, _he thinks, for maybe the millionth time since he's moved in with her, but he doesn't call her out on it. He can't really fault her for thinking what she thinks about him—'Skurge' is what he introduced himself as when they first met; it's what she's been calling him for over a year now.

He hears the newspaper hit their screen door and forces himself up on unsteady feet.

"You get that," Amora calls, without noticing he's already halfway to the door, and he has to steel himself against a surge of anger, his fists and jaw clenching. He opens the door and picks up the paper, flipping through it with his long, greasy fingers, not really reading, just scanning. He's about to throw it back out when an article catches his eye—at the bottom of the front page of the 'People' section, there's a name, unusual, one he thought he'd never see again. Directly above it is the picture of its owner—also someone he thought he'd never see again. He can feel his lips curling into a smile—actually more of a grimace—and he doesn't have to read the accompanying article to know it's about Berkeley.

He walks back into the kitchen, clutching the paper in his sweaty palm, and touches Amora on her forearm. She turns, surprised, and allows him a half-second glimpse of her pale, exposed shoulder; her round, firm breast, before she buttons her shirt the rest of the way back up. "Skurge," she says, one hand still resting lightly on the skillet handle. "What is it?"

He reaches around her and switches off the gas burner. "Change of plans," he says. "Pack your shit up, Amora; we can pick up lunch off the Interstate if we see a good place."

Her eyebrows come together, and she frowns slightly, making eye contact with him for the first time all day. They share the same color of iris—though hers are more gray than blue—but she doesn't like looking directly at him if she can help it. There are moments, sometimes, when she thinks he looks almost dead.

"Where are we going?" she asks, one hand on her hip.

He grins, wild and wicked and, she thinks, a little bit demonic. "Manhattan," he says, before walking out, the paper still clutched tightly in his hand.


	2. This Game of Ours

The trip takes two days. Thanos—'Skurge' to Amora, 'underage freak' to the bum who sits outside the liquor store he goes into sometimes—drives most of the way, leaned forward in the seat, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles have gone white. Amora sits in the passenger's seat, one hand shoved halfway down inside a bag of Doritos, the other holding up the article from the newspaper, the one that sparked Thanos' interest. She crunches noisily, the sound mixing with the engine clattering, and he wishes he could expel her from the car.

"Why are we going to Manhattan?" she asks after a while, staring out at the gray, January sky. The threat of snow hangs in the gasoline-scented air; Thanos can see his breath, even inside the car.

"Personal reasons," he says, and for a second all he can see in his mind is Loki, and the way he looked spread out beneath him; all pale, exposed skin, open and vulnerable and so unlike Amora.

She looks at him with her head tilted slightly. "You don't have family in Manhattan; you said you lost everyone—"

"Shut the fuck up," he snarls. "I know what I said." He flexes his fingers on the wheel; tightening, relaxing. She watches each tendon moving separately and thinks that, at one point, he must have been very beautiful.

They stay the night in a Super 8, and he slams into her while she grips the mattress and bites his shoulder to muffle her cries. They scratch and bruise and pull; they are not gentle with each other, and that's what he likes about her, her seeming lack of a pain threshold. When he comes, of course, he says Loki's name instead of Amora's, but it's happened before, and she decides to overlook it. (She thinks, later, watching Skurge—really Thanos, though of course she doesn't know that—sleep, that whoever Loki is, he must be incredibly important.)

In the morning they have breakfast in the lobby, and end up having to leave early because Thanos throws a fit over the lack of scrambled eggs. He sulks the entire day, squinting into the hazy sunlight and yelling at Amora if she tries to talk, and she finds herself thinking, _whatever this trip is for, it fucking better be worth it._

/

In one of the back rooms of the astronomy building, Tony wraps his arms around Loki's waist and kisses the side of his neck. They are standing in front of a fax machine, waiting for their research papers to go through—the research they did on the planetary alignments over the break, the research that got them an obscure newspaper article. Being so close to the machine is making Tony's electromagnet hum, and Loki turns in his arms and slides his fingers along the smooth metal sides. Two years later, both of them are still utterly fascinated by the concept.

Tony trails his fingers down the even line of Loki's throat, slips their fingers together. "You look good today," he says quietly, and Loki smiles faintly in the glow of the magnet.

"Yeah?"

"Well, you should, anyway," Tony shrugs. "I'm skipping Physics for you, you know."

Laughing, Loki pushes Tony off him. "Get back to class, Stark," he says, affectionately. "I'll be waiting for you outside our apartment." (After their sophomore year was finished, Odin had unexpectedly bought Loki a car—although Tony secretly suspected he'd done it mostly because Thor wouldn't stop bugging him.)

"Are we still on for dinner tonight, then, Shakespeare?" Tony asks when he's about halfway to the door. Loki nods, and Tony grins. "Good, 'cause I'm fucking starving."

Loki rolls his eyes and tries hard to keep from smiling again. "Get _out_," he says, and Tony bows and leaves, wiggling his fingers until he's shut the door behind him. Loki sighs softly and turns back to the fax machine. He spreads his fingers out over the constellations on one page; traces a map from Betelgeuse to Alpha Centauri. He is fascinated by space; by its loneliness, its emptiness. He thinks maybe, if the idea of acting or writing doesn't work out, he'll be an astronomer.

As always when he's alone, Loki loses himself in his thoughts; forgets what he's in the room for. Half an hour passes, but he's unaware of it.

The door clicks behind him, but he doesn't turn. "Tony," he says, "come on, five more minutes, I just need to get this done—"

A horribly familiar voice interrupts him with, "It's not Tony," and Loki can feel every single organ in his body freezing; all the hairs on the back of his neck standing up on edge. He grips the edges of the fax machine and wonders if it would be possible for him to flip himself over to the other side and hide there until this new nightmare is over.

"Turn around," the voice says. "I won't bite."

In spite of himself, in spite of two years of trying to get over it, trying to forget the feeling of _you owe me_, Loki starts turning—but his muscles won't work, and he stumbles a bit, catching the palm of his hand on the sharp corner of the machine. A slow, crimson line of blood runs down his skin, disappearing under his sleeve.

"Ah, Lo'… you hurt yourself." Thanos—because it _is _Thanos, isn't it, even though he's rail-thin and bruised and cut up in places and smells like he hasn't showered in about three months—starts forward, and Loki automatically flinches, clenching his fists.

_Two years, Laufeyson, and you're still a fucking coward around him, _is all he can think, and he grits his teeth. "What are you doing here, Thanos?"

There's a flash of teeth and Thanos is suddenly standing right next to him, those cold eyes fixating on a point somewhere over his left shoulder. "I came to see you. I missed you. You can't tell me you didn't miss me, too." He lifts his hand to stroke Loki's cheek, and Loki jerks out of the way.

"I have not seen or heard from you in two years," he snaps. "And the last time we were together, you tried to murder my boyfriend."

"Touché," Thanos sneers. "Tony Stark was merely in the way, Lo'."

"In the way of what, exactly? I never quite understood why you pulled the gun on him." Loki's shaking, badly, and he can tell Thanos sees by the way his eyes travel from Loki's hands to his legs, then up to his mouth; the way he smirks and runs his tongue over his lips.

"In the way of us," Thanos whispers, before leaning in and pressing his mouth to Loki's, pushing him back against one of the tables nearby. He can feel the cold metal pushing hard into his back, and with an effort manages to shove Thanos off him, just as the door opens a second time and an unfamiliar woman walks in. She's got long, tangled brown hair, gray eyes, and bears an eerie resemblance to Thanos.

"Skurge, come on, you said five minutes, _tops,_" she snaps, and then her eyes fall on Loki. "Who the fuck are you?" Her head whips between them like she's watching a tennis match. "Is this that 'Loki' guy you're always harping on about, Skurge? Because he's _nothing _like what you make him out to be."

"I have never mentioned Loki to you," Thanos mutters.

"Sometimes, yeah, in your sleep." She runs her fingers distractedly through her hair. "Jesus Christ, Skurge."

"_What,_ Amora?" There's a hint of his old rage in his voice now, buried beneath layers of something like familiarity, and Loki wonders what they are to each other, and why the hell she keeps calling him 'Skurge'.

She shakes her head. "Nothing."

He frowns at her, then turns back to Loki. "Lo'… goddamn, you don't know how good it is to see you again."

"The same cannot be said for me," Loki mutters. "How did you even find me?"

"_Lo'_?" Amora is repeating, sounding both confused and slightly humored at the same time. "Seriously, you call him _Lo'_?"

"That article printed in the paper, pertaining to you and Anthony," Thanos says, ignoring Amora entirely. "I found it by chance two days ago; I skimmed it, saw 'astronomy', knew there was a fifty-fifty chance if I came back I'd find you here." A sudden grin flashes across his face. "Just like old times, huh? You, me, this building… remember, Lo'?"

Loki shivers and isn't sure if he's going to throw up or pass out, or maybe both. "How'd you get past security?"

"Did _you _recognize me at first?" Thanos folds his arms across his chest. "Anyway, Jesus, it's been two fucking years, why would they still be looking for me?"

"What'd you do?" Amora asks, her eyes wide with curiosity, and a slight touch of fear.

"Not anything important." He waves his hand distractedly. "Where's Tony, by the way? I want to see him."

For some reason, suddenly all Loki can see in his mind is the electromagnet, the way it glows beneath Tony's shirt like a second heart. Several times in the past two years, Tony's wound up in the hospital because of it—small electroshocks, nothing major—and each time, both he and Loki have asked Yinsen if there's anything they can do to get rid of it and put in something else. "The electromagnet is essential to Tony's life," Yinsen says every time. "It can't be removed."

They are always very careful, when they're alone together, that they don't bump the magnet out of place by accident. But Loki knows Thanos, knows what he's capable of, and he knows that if Thanos were to find out about it, he'd rip the electromagnet out and destroy it, leaving Tony to die.

Thanos _cannot _see Tony.

"He's off campus right now," Loki says, clearing his throat. "You can't see him."

Thanos shrugs. "Whatever." He allows his hand to settle on Loki's shoulder for a second, squeezing it gently, and Loki shudders at the close contact. "It was good seeing you anyway, Macbeth. We'll be around, me and Amora." He walks over to her and slips his hand into hers, and she glares at him, like she knows what's going on and doesn't like it.

"Nice meeting you, _Lo'_," she says, mockingly, before turning, wrenching her hand from Thanos' grasp, and walking out.

Loki does not miss the way Thanos' masseter twitches as he follows.

/

Tony is waiting for him at the apartment by the time he gets there, leaning against the door, twirling his key ring around his finger. "Jesus, Shakespeare, what took you so long?" he asks as Loki gets out of his car. "I was about to send the police after you—" His sentence is cut short as Loki nearly throws himself into Tony's arms, pressing his face against his chest, inhaling the familiar scent of chemicals and cigarettes and cologne. Startled, Tony hesitantly wraps his arms around Loki's waist—they are not big on showing affection like this, especially not in public—and lightly kisses his cheek.

"What's going on?" he asks, because he can feel Loki trembling beneath his touch. "Silvertongue, did something happen after I left?"

The pressure of the electromagnet between them is a reminder. Quickly, Loki pulls away, catching his breath and turning before Stark can see the tears that have gathered in his eyes. "Can't I simply wish to show you that I am glad to see you?" he asks, and maybe it comes out a bit snappy, because Tony raises his eyebrows and replies:

"Well, sure, Shakespeare, if you're positive you really are _glad _to see me."

Loki rolls his eyes. "You are insufferable," he mutters, before jamming his key into the lock and turning it. He goes in, angry and miserable, and Tony follows after a few seconds, trying to think of what might have happened, what he might have done.

"Loki, are you sure—"

"Seriously, Stark, stop," and Loki drops his key and his books on the sofa and storms upstairs. Tony hears the bathroom door click shut, and sighs.

"I guess the dinner date is off, then?" he yells.

**A/N: Credits for the idea of keeping Thanos and Amora a secret goes to GreenLoki; thank you so much, darling! **

**Also a **_**huge **_**thank you to everyone who's rated and/or reviewed this story so far—I would like to apologize if these chapters come out slower than the ones before, but I'm working two jobs now and I'm a bit stressed out from that, so. **


	3. Don't Let the Sun go Down on Me

In the morning, Loki wakes up curled around Tony, his lips pressed against the soft brown hairs curling at the nape of his neck, one long-fingered hand draped across his waist, the other tucked underneath their pillow—they sleep so close together, and move around so much in the night, that they've pretty much started sharing one. Tony is still asleep, his breathing coming slow and even, the electromagnet glowing gently against Loki's arm.

He still has no idea that Thanos is in the area again.

They made up last night, after Loki sulked in the bathroom for an hour, trying not to cry, staring at his hollow-eyed reflection in the mirror and wondering, _where the hell do I go from here? _He told Tony that it had been a long day; that he was tired, and Tony seemed to accept it, although Loki could tell from his expression that he wasn't one hundred percent satisfied. They ate some sort of instant pasta—four cheese with spice, and Loki laughed when Tony spent fifteen minutes sniffing his, trying to figure out what the four cheeses were—and then they headed upstairs and, although Loki tried to sit down and work on his assignments, they ended up in bed together as usual, tangled limbs and sweat-soaked skin and arching spines.

They often fall asleep these days without saying anything to each other after sex, but that's okay, Loki tells himself, he can still see what Tony's feeling in his eyes.

Taking care not to wake him, Loki slides out of bed and pads down the hallway for a quick shower before his advanced Latin class. He's downstairs, dark hair dripping on the carpet as he gathers his books and sucks powdered sugar from the donut off his fingers, when Tony approaches, wearing a pair of Loki's sweatpants rolled up at his waist, his hand over his electromagnet. His eyes are swollen with exhaustion and his mouth is twisted in pain, though he does manage a quick smile for Loki as he walks to their coffee machine and starts it up.

"Tony, are you feeling all right?" Loki asks, hesitating at the front door, his keys dangling from his hand.

Tony nods, makes a gesture at the door, coughs a little. "Go do Latin," he says. "_Vini vidi vici, _or whatever the hell it is."

Loki snorts, in spite of himself. "Your pronunciations are atrocious."

"Hey, at least I'm trying." Tony grins, and Loki rolls his eyes, but he's laughing.

"Dinner tonight?" he asks, and Tony nods, holding the cup to his lips. Loki does not have to see his mouth to know he's still smiling. He heads out, the cold January wind slipping through his coat, flushing his high cheekbones.

He gets in his car and drives off, blaring the latest Florence + the Machine album, and doesn't hear the clanking of the beat-up Mazda behind him as it follows him out of the parking lot and towards the college.

The second Tony's sure that Loki has gone, he sets his coffee down and picks up his cell phone, wincing as another sharp pain jolts through his chest from the center of the magnet. He doesn't have to look down to know that the scars have returned, branching out from all sides of the metal circle, red and purple against his skin, like a deadly puzzle tattooed on his ribcage. He's lucky it doesn't show up when Loki's around—although he's pretty sure it has, sometimes, when he's wearing a shirt.

Tony Stark is dying.

He's known for a while, now, since a little while after the start of their senior year; he still has yet to accept it, any of it—the fact that the electromagnet is slowly poisoning him, that he's dying from the inside out, that there is currently nothing he or anyone else can do to stop it, not without killing him early. The first time Yinsen told him was after a particularly bad electroshock in late September, when he went to the hospital alone, after a harsh fight with Loki had sent the younger man storming out, unaware that Tony was going into cardiac arrest on the living room floor. He remembers asking:

"What the hell is _wrong _with me, Yinsen?" and seeing the doctor's face pull back a mask of worry just a second too late. Yinsen had sighed; had put his hand over Tony's, looking him right in the eye.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Stark, that you are dying," he said quietly. "Your electromagnet runs on a power source of various elements, primarily iron—and we have tried to stabilize it as long as we can, but your time is running out. I can inject you with deferoxamine, but it won't be enough." He'd sighed, looking more worn out than Tony had ever seen him. "The device that is keeping you alive… is also killing you." (Tony had driven home that night, shaking so badly he almost wrecked the car twice; when he got inside he immediately threw himself into Loki's arms, pressing his face against his neck and kissing him, kissing and touching until they could not get to their room and out of their clothes fast enough. Later, he'd whispered _sorry _against Loki's skin, and neither of them had been entirely sure they knew what he was apologizing for.)

After that, everything had sort of changed for Tony. He'd been going to see Yinsen once a month, every month, for his injections. They discussed various options, various treatments, but it always boiled down to the same thing: dialysis, and eventual death. "Unless you can create a miracle in your physics lab at Berkeley," Yinsen said in November, "I'm afraid you are not going to live past twenty-three."

Which for Tony is so _fucking _unfair, because he'd been shot in the chest by that lunatic, he'd survived that; he'd put up with Howard and his alcoholism for all those years; and now he's going to be defeated by the same thing that has kept him from dying all this time. Theoretically, he supposes it would be possible to create something that could substitute for the electromagnet, but it's doubtful.

The hardest part, for Tony, is not being able to tell Loki.

It isn't as if Yinsen's sworn him to secrecy, it's more like he _can't _tell Loki, can't burden him with that strain. There are mornings when he wakes up and the pain is arcing through him, just racing like electricity on a high voltage wire, and he has to clench his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut to keep from crying out. There are times when he looks at Loki, across a table or if they're reading together or when they've collapsed side-by-side and are just lying there, staring at the ceiling, chests heaving, and he thinks he will tell him then, because he's going to lose him anyway so why the hell not, but then something freezes up inside him and he ends up saying something stupid instead, something meaningless that makes Loki laugh and kiss his neck and tell him he loves him.

(Tony's always handled shit on his own, _always, _and this, this will be no different, and Tony will walk out of this on his own, and Loki will never know.)

His hands are shaking as he dials Yinsen's number. He's allowed to call anytime, day or night, but he restricts himself to the times when he's alone in the apartment. When the doctor picks up, Tony is breathing so hard he finds it difficult to speak.

"Yin…" he says, hoarsely, and then he falls, clutching the kitchen counter. "I need…"

"Hold on, Tony," Yinsen says into the phone, and Tony can hear him rushing through the haze of pain that has swollen up inside him. "Stay on the line, I'm coming to you."

_Tracking device, _Tony thinks, and smiles faintly before passing out.

/

When he wakes up, he's stretched out on the sofa, feet propped up against a pillow Thor and Jane gave them for Christmas. Yinsen is sitting next to him, quietly cleaning off his instruments, occasionally writing something down on a pad of paper.

Tony clears his throat. Yinsen looks up, and Tony doesn't miss the expression of relief that passes over his face. "Mr. Stark," he says. "How good of you to wake up."

"Where would the world be if I didn't?" Tony says, grinning. His chest feels better, and when he glances down he sees that his skin is still smooth, tanned; no crosshatched red lines marking his death. His left arm feels like someone punched it with a sledgehammer, and he reaches around and touches the Band-Aid over the cut where the shot was. "Thanks again," he adds, quieter, more serious. "It's uh… it's getting worse, isn't it?"

Yinsen bites his lower lip, hesitating. "We may have to start the dialysis soon, if your condition doesn't improve."

"I couldn't even make it to the hospital today," Tony murmurs. "What happens… fuck. What happens if one day Loki has to take me?"

The doctor sighs, stands up. He gathers his papers and heads for the door. "If I were you, Mr. Stark… I'd make sure he knows about it _long _before that day comes." He presses his hand to his ear, indicating _call if necessary, _and walks out, leaving Tony a shaking, confused, and utterly terrified mess on his own sofa.

He passes out again, eventually, his mind no closer to providing a solution to this problem than it was four hours ago, his skin cold and clammy with sweat.

/

Loki spends the entire day feeling strangely like someone is following him, although every time he turns around he sees no one, hears nothing. He meets up with Thor for lunch at the Greek restaurant down the street, and they chat—Thor tells him about Jane, how perfect she is, how wonderful, brother, to be so in love; and he tells Thor about he and Tony's astronomy project, purposefully leaving out the fighting, the tension between them. He doesn't mention Thanos or Amora, although he _wants _to, desperately.

When Loki's final class of the day is over, he drives straight back to the apartment, still unable to shake the feeling that he's being followed. He lets himself in and is surprised to find Tony draped over the sofa, still shirtless, one arm flung over his forehead. There is a half-empty bottle of beer beside him, and Loki is leaning over to pick it up when Tony wakes, eyes almost feverishly bright, sitting up with a slight wince.

"Let's go to dinner, Shakespeare," he says, kissing him, pulling him down by the shirt collar and making him laugh, and by the time they are ready and in the car Loki has forgotten about the 'being followed' thing.

They go to a new place, some Mexican restaurant near the Italian one. Their booth is near the back, and Loki sits facing the window, his hand folded over Tony's in the center of the table.

"Did you have a nice day?" Tony asks, after they've seen the menus. "Learn anything cool, like how to say _let me fuck my gorgeous boyfriend _in Latin?"

Loki chokes on his water. "Don't be crass, Stark," he says, wiping his chin with his napkin. "As if you had a productive day, staying in the apartment. Why did you skip class?"

Tony hesitates, his hand drifting unconsciously towards the electromagnet, and it's then that Loki's focus shifts to the front of the restaurant. Beyond the cash register, just outside the door, framed by a slight frost, are Thanos and Amora, looking in, their eyes gray and dead like the fog over a sea. Thanos catches Loki's eye, and a slow smirk curls up at one corner of his lips. _Hey, _he mouths, and Loki feels a chill run down his spine.

"Skipped so I could think of more ways to get you to have sex with me," Tony is saying, and Loki is too distracted to notice how badly his voice is shaking, and how, out of everything he could've said, that is not Tony's best line.

After a few seconds, he forces himself to look away from Thanos and Amora, who seem to be entertaining themselves by fogging the glass up with their breath. "So listen, Tony, I was thinking, we could read _This Side of Paradise _out loud some time… it's what I'm working on in my literature class…"

They spend the rest of the dinner lying to each other, and if either one notices that the sex is a little more desperate that night, a little more like they're trying to communicate some urgent news without words, neither of them mentions it.


	4. Unspoken

"So what exactly is going on between you and Loki?"

Amora and Thanos are standing side-by-side in a run-down Laundromat a few streets away from Berkeley, shoving as many clothes as will fit into one washing machine and generally ignoring the people around them, all of whom are staring at Thanos, at the cut on his cheek which is still smeared with fresh blood—the result of an earlier fight between he and Amora.

He crams a pair of jeans on top of one of Amora's dresses and sprinkles detergent over the pile. "It's a long story," he mutters, and still cannot believe that after nearly two full years of being together, he hasn't taken the time to explain it to her, why he left Manhattan in the first place. It isn't like he thinks she'd judge him or anything—Amora is similar to Thanos in many ways, and he doesn't doubt she'd stoop to attempted murder if necessary—but there is something stopping him. For the first time in his life, he almost (and _almost_ is the operative word here because seriously, Thanos doesn't do emotions, doesn't have them) wants someone else's genuine respect.

In the beginning, when they first met, he told himself he was just going to lead her on, the way he did to Loki; that he'd reveal his true nature after they'd been together for a while. But it's been twenty-two months and six days, and he has yet to tell her that he's actually a psychopathic killer with some disorder he never had the money to diagnose and a string of ex-lovers, all of whom hate him and want him dead.

And sure, he's been rough with her, but unlike the others, she fights back. When he found her, she was alone, and since then no one's come after her, no one seems to want her. As far as Thanos is concerned, that's perfect.

"Well, we've got about thirty minutes to kill," Amora says in response to his brief statement, slamming the lid to the machine down and drumming her long fingernails against the ceramic. "Come on, Skurge, one story. One little bit of information about your deep, dark history with this green-eyed freak."

Thanos laughs shortly, hits the button that will start the washing machine. They walk over and sit on the benches facing the machines and he sighs, clasping his hands between his knees. "Right, okay," he says, rubbing his thumb over the thin skin stretching across his joints. "We… dated back in our sophomore year. He ended up disagreeing with me on some things, so we split. I met you maybe two months after that happened." He's staring out the window, watching a few flecks of snow fall to the concrete, deliberately being evasive, but Amora doesn't say anything other than:

"Well, he didn't deserve you, then," and it's one of the only times she's ever said anything nice to him, and he can't help the small smile that twitches at the corner of his mouth.

The next second, their machine is breaking because of a clothes overload, and she's yelling at him and he's threatening to pull out a switchblade and the manager is waving the cord in their faces and screaming at them in Italian, making gestures at the door. They leave, but not before taking their clothes out of the washer, still thick with soap, drenched in water.

"What in the fuck are we supposed to do with these?" Amora asks, once they're outside, holding up her soaking blouse and shivering in the cold.

Thanos hesitates, glancing around. Then his eye falls on a student from Berkeley that he recognizes, Justin something-or-other, and he feels his lips curling into a sneer. He walks over to Justin and taps him on the shoulder. The man jumps, then turns, his eyes sliding up and down Thanos' body before snapping back to his face. The sunlight is catching on his glasses, making him squint.

"Can I help you?" he asks.

Thanos holds his clothes out. "Do you have a working washing machine where you're staying?"

Justin frowns slightly, stepping back a bit. "Yeah. Why?"

"It appears that my girlfriend and I have broken the washing machine down at the Laundromat." Thanos gives his friendliest-feeling smile—which means he ends up looking like he's debating whether he's going to murder Justin with his bare hands or with a gun.

The younger man hesitates, then sighs. "Why the hell not," he mutters, and pulls his keys out of his back pocket. "Come with me."

Once they are in his car, and driving towards the college, Thanos leans forward in his seat. "I'm Skurge," he introduces, "and this is Amora. And you are…?"

"Justin Hammer. I'm getting a degree in engineering. Aren't you—I mean—I haven't seen you around, but I thought I recognized you from a class I had—"

"No," Thanos interrupts, quickly, refusing to look at Amora even though he can feel her eyes on him. "No, I don't go to Berkeley." Which is mostly true; he doesn't want to try and risk registering again, and anyway there's no point in attending college when he has no way of funding himself. "Listen, do you know Tony Stark?"

An unidentifiable expression crosses Justin's face at the mention of Tony's name, but he just nods, glancing at Thanos in his rearview mirror. "Why?"

Thanos grins, and it's no less chilling than the first time. "Do you like him?"

Justin snorts. "No. He's a fucking prick; him and that Rhodey guy are always showing everyone up in engineering, like just because they built a ten-foot replica of the Golden Gate Bridge means they should be anything special."

"Ah, Justin," says Thanos, falling back in his seat and folding his arms across his chest. "I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

/

Tony has three major tests coming up—two of which are part of his physics course. He has a paper to turn in for engineering and a biology lab he needs to get done with Bruce.

All in all, it seems to him like the perfect time to skip class and stay in with Loki.

They'd started out on the sofa but have somehow ended up in bed, half-dressed, Loki leaning over Tony and rocking their hips together while Tony kisses him desperately, trying to push up and undo his jeans simultaneously. Ever since the incident with the electromagnet, he's been extra conscious of how much time he spends with Loki—as if he can accurately count down the minutes until they can no longer be together. He hasn't told him, not yet, and why should he—he's going to find something that will take care of it in the lab, he _has _to. (Jarvis would say it's Tony taking after Howard with his stubborn streak, and Tony's half-inclined to believe that's true.)

His heart is racing below the magnet as he manages to get his fingers around the zipper and tug downwards. "Loki," he says, breathing hard, and Loki reaches for the lube, his eyes on Tony's, watching for any sign of pain. He's noticed a few times, recently, that Tony's been having trouble getting up and down the stairs in the college, and he hasn't said anything but god, he's wondering if it's maybe time to start worrying.

But then, Loki doesn't _have _time to worry about Tony, not right now, not with Thanos and Amora being the way they are. During his linguistics course yesterday, he noticed Amora standing in the back of the classroom, wearing a Bluetooth headset and occasionally murmuring things into it, glancing in Loki's direction and half-smiling. He has no idea how much she knows, and perhaps that's worse.

Loki does not realize he's drifted off until he feels Tony's fingers curling around his forearm. He glances down, slightly startled, and sees Tony staring up at him with a bemused expression on his face. "You all right there, Shakespeare?" he asks, but his eyes are distracted too, and Loki sighs, tossing the lube to the floor and falling to Tony's side, the slick sweat on his skin starting to cool off.

"Sorry," he says. "I was preparing for a quiz on James Fenimore Cooper."

"During sex," Tony says, skeptically, raising an eyebrow. He reaches over and grabs Loki's hand, tracing equations over his palm. "Not even _you_ are that studious."

"_The Deerslayer _is a difficult novel," Loki mutters, staring at the ceiling.

"Deerslayer," Tony repeats, and laughs a little, trying to mask his disappointment, the slight touch of anger he feels over this whole situation. This sort of thing hasn't happened often lately, but it never happened at all before he got the damn electromagnet. _Stupid fucking foreign device, _he thinks, and wishes he could throw it out the window.

"Yes," says Loki softly. He cannot get the image of Thanos' face out of his mind; how gaunt he is now, how worn-down and beaten he appears to be.

"It sounds like a book Thor would like, or maybe that little fuck Thanos," and when Tony says that name, Loki jerks like he's been shocked. He sits up, pulling his jeans back on and sliding off the bed. He locates his shirt on the floor and picks it up, feeling Tony's eyes on his back the entire time.

"What the hell?" Tony says finally, when Loki's dressed again. "What—Loki, what is going on?"

"Nothing," Loki snaps, tying his shoes and standing up. "I'm going to go for a walk, Stark. Do not expect me back before dinner." He storms out, slamming the door behind him, and Tony would run after him if his chest wasn't hurting so much. He pulls a cigarette out of his secret stash under the mattress—although he doesn't smoke as often as he used to, he can't help it sometimes—stares at it for a while, then throws it out the open window, into the frostbitten air.

"Goddammit," he curses, slamming his fist into his palm.

The electromagnet hums softly, a steady reminder, and he wants to wrench it out.

/

Later, after the sun has gone down and Tony has resigned himself to a long evening of staring at physics theories and trying to tie them in with calculus equations, Loki returns, carrying takeout in a plastic bag, his cheeks flushed from the cold. He sets the boxes down on the coffee table, then kneels in front of Tony and takes his head in his hands. He kisses him softly, running his thumb over his jawline, and the touch of his skin feels like an apology.

**A/N: I want to apologize for the time it's taken me to get this chapter out. I am having a lot of trouble focusing on writing lately—and also this plot hasn't fully developed in my mind yet, so a lot of it is really more filler than anything. **

**I hope you guys continue liking it anyway, and I promise, the chapter lengths are going to increase once I really get going. **


	5. The Devil is Running Around

For Tony, the day Loki disappears starts like this:

He wakes up to the shrill ringing of the alarm, winces, and slaps at the air for a bit before finding it and turning it off. His arm drifts for a moment, staying close to the early-morning warmth of Loki's skin under the blankets, then he forces himself to get up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and taking care not to wake his lover as he slips his boxers back on and heads down the hallway to the bathroom. There's a meter, hidden in the back of one of the cabinets, and he takes it out, sliding the needle under his skin, puncturing a vein and drawing blood. Like an insulin meter, it measures the amount of iron in his blood and shows him the percentage on a tiny screen. _Forty-five percent, _it reads this morning, and Tony sighs, wiping the tiny droplet of blood off his forearm and placing the meter carefully back into its plastic container. He's been using it for a while now, since a little bit before the last time Yinsen had to make an emergency visit, and he has to admit it's helpful—although it does scare the shit out of him, most of the time, because he has no idea what he's going to do on the day when it starts climbing up in percentages by the tens on a daily basis.

Then he returns to he and Loki's room, just as the younger man is sitting up in bed, the sheets folding softly around his waist. He stretches, allowing Tony a good glimpse of his torso, all pale skin and lean sinew, then he stands, naked and gorgeous, and a slow smile spreads across his face.

"Morning, Stark," he says, and it's enough to make Tony tackle him back onto the bed, both of them laughing, then kissing, their hands everywhere on each other.

(Later, long before the events start unfolding, longer still before Tony starts to worry, he will blame Loki for his tardiness to the course he's taking in thermonuclear astrophysics.)

Afterwards, they shower together, Tony pulling his fingers through Loki's hair to wash it out and Loki slowly, tantalizingly, running his hands on the skin around the electromagnet, on the slight scarring from the operation. He presses soft kisses to Tony's collarbones, mouth hot and wet with water, and Tony lets him back him up against the wall, because why should either of them be in a rush to get anywhere?

And then they're fully dressed and downstairs, and Tony's standing in the doorway, rolling his key ring around his finger, late already for class and not even caring, and Loki's sitting on the sofa with the television remote balanced carefully in his lap, because his courses don't even start until after twelve p.m.

"You wanna meet up for lunch today, Shakespeare?" Tony asks. He's mostly hoping Loki says yes, but a very small, very selfish part of him is thinking _say no say no _because he could use his lunchtime to work on a solution to the magnet problem—preferably with Bruce, who Tony knows will a.) keep quiet about the whole ordeal until it's time to make it public, and b.) have extensive knowledge about the scientific aspects of how to fix it. Still, he's not disappointed when Loki nods.

"I may not be able to make it, though," he says. "I have my classical literature class today, and the professor will probably detain me to lecture the less intelligent students on the importance of Oscar Wilde's _The Picture of Dorian Gray _in today's narcissistic society. Although I have to admit, that is unlikely—he thinks he was Oscar's lover in a past life."

Tony laughs. "Speaking of a narcissistic society," he says, and gestures at himself. "Did I tell you that yesterday I took an Internet quiz which told me I'm ninety-five percent likely to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?"

Loki just shakes his head, smiling. "Never believe what you read on the Internet, Tony. But for your own benefit, perhaps _you _should be the one I should be lecturing to about this novel." He holds up a battered copy of the book, and Tony grins.

"You're allowed to lecture to me any time you like, Silvertongue," he says, and Loki rolls his eyes, biting back a laugh.

"Go to class, Stark," he says, and throws the book at Tony, who just laughs and ducks out of the door, blowing a kiss as he goes.

Once Loki is sure Tony has completely left the apartment complex and is sure he won't be returning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his Android, checking it for messages. There are four from Thanos and one from Thor, wanting to know if Loki and Tony would care to join he and Jane for a dinner-and-movie night back at their apartment. Loki quickly texts Thor back, declining with a half-hidden apology—despite his increase in closeness to his adopted brother over these past two years, he doesn't think he's quite up to spending the entire evening in the company of him and his well-meaning but slightly annoying girlfriend—then checks the messages from Thanos. They are all signed 'Skurge'—and Loki still has not figured that out yet, and wonders if maybe he's still on the run from the police and has to use a fake identity to get around—and they range from slightly weird to a little too creepy:

_01.15.14 – 09:25 a.m.: Good morning, Lo'. Amora and I are awake now and she's making me a cheese omelet for breakfast. Do you miss my omelets, Lo'? I can still cook, I just prefer for her to do it because she's so good. Not that you weren't good, but she has a 'special touch', I suppose. Anyway, just wanted to say good morning! Call me if you want. Skurge._

_01.15.14 – 09:43 a.m.: Just cut my hand open on a can opener trying to get the tomato sauce out for Amora to start fixing burritos. That's what we're having for dinner tonight. Isn't it ironic that my blood is red, and the sauce is as well? I wonder if any of it got mixed together. Let's certainly hope not. Call me, okay? Oh, and tell Tony I said 'hello', would you? Skurge._

_01.15.14 – 10:00 a.m.: Last night I had a dream that you and I were still together, and we were fucking in a meadow. A meadow, Lo', isn't that strange? As if I'd ever take you to a meadow… Remember those shirts we used to design together? None of them ever had meadows on them. You used to make me cheerful slogans. We should do that again sometime, okay? You pick a date. Skurge._

_01.15.14 – 10:30 a.m.: This is just a heads-up, Lo': I'm going to be seeing you later today. Amora and I both will be seeing you. Maybe we can all get together for dinner. Those bloody burritos. Hah, that was funny, wasn't it? I made a pun. I should take linguistics class with you. Call me before your class starts—you're taking linguistics today, aren't you? Isn't that ironic that I mentioned it, and you're taking it? Oh well. Talk to you later, okay? Skurge._

There's also a voicemail from Thanos, wanting to know if Loki's okay, if he needs a ride to the college. Halfway through the message Amora chimes in, saying something about 'we can't pick Loki up, we need to save on gas', and Loki can hear the crack of skin on skin through the phone, followed by a harsh 'who asked you, you fucking bitch?' before the line goes dead. He feels a chill run up and down his arms, raising his hair, and he shuts his phone off before turning on the television.

In the back of his mind, it occurs to him he should probably wonder why Thanos and Amora will be seeing him later, but he doesn't want to think about it right now. With a soft sigh, he slides down against the sofa cushions, eyes on the bright screen, mind wandering, flicking from thoughts of Tony to thoughts of Thanos like he's watching an old-fashioned, half-broken newsreel.

After a while, he heads out, a box of leftover Chinese takeout in the passenger seat and a compilation of Bach's greatest compositions in the tape deck. The lights are all green and he doesn't have time to notice the banged-up car behind him, emitting heavy clouds of gas from its tailpipe every time it guns forward, lurching against the stick shift and worn accelerator. (Okay, he does notice it once, when he's turning, but it keeps going straight and he figures he doesn't have to worry about it crashing into him or breaking down and blowing up or anything.) He parks his car in front of the linguistics building and goes in, leaving one window cracked for air ventilation.

Thanos and Amora are waiting for him in the hallway just outside his classroom.

Well, to be more precise, it's just Thanos, leaning against the wall—Amora is getting a drink from the water fountain a few feet away. He's wearing a worn leather jacket and smells faintly of oil.

"Thanos," Loki starts, and suddenly Thanos' hand is around his neck, silencing him as he pushes him against the wall.

"It's Skurge now," he snarls. "And you would do well to remember that." But even as he speaks his eyes cut to Amora, betraying him, and Loki cannot keep the smirk off his face then.

"You are hiding your true identity so that a woman won't get hurt," he says. "That is very unlike you, Thanos."

Thanos' eyes narrow, and his thumb digs into the hollow of Loki's throat. "Don't," he starts, but just then Amora walks over, wiping excess water from her lips, and slings her arm across Thanos' shoulders.

"Hey, Skurge, chill," she says, and Loki realizes that if he squints slightly, he can see the bruise Thanos left earlier, barely covered by makeup. "We only want to talk to him, okay, not kill him."

Thanos frowns, stepping back, flexing his fingers against his jeans. Then he glances up at Loki, and a bright smile forms on his face. "Come with Amora and I to lunch," he says. "My treat."

_I was going to meet Stark for lunch, _is what Loki wants to say, but of course he doesn't, because saying that would only get Thanos into Tony's life again earlier, and Loki cannot have that. He hesitates, glancing at the door to his classroom, then shrugs. He knows _The Picture of Dorian Gray _backwards and forwards; he's read it at least fifty times, twenty of which were with Tony, who can no longer deny to anyone that he likes classical literature. What can one dinner hurt?

"Of course," he says to Thanos, staring him in the eye and noticing that he still looks as cold and dead as he ever did. "It would be my pleasure."

Dinner is at a cheap Mexican restaurant, clear on the other side of town, and Loki winces when it occurs to him that he will have to get back before nightfall. He sits on one side of the booth, and Thanos and Amora sit on the other, arguing in hushed tones about bills they have to pay and where they are going to get their next meal from, and Loki thinks they sound like a married couple, which is odd. He hopes Tony will text him, if for no other reason than so he can have a distraction, but there's nothing, nothing coming from his phone, and no messages from the restaurant's phone, either.

It isn't until later that Loki realizes he's left his phone off the entire day, but of course by then it's too late.

Towards the end of their dinner, Thanos finally seems to remember that Loki is there and he leans forward, a smear of sauce on his lower lip. "How are things with you, Lo'?" he asks.

"I'm okay," Loki says quietly, leaning back instinctively.

"You and Tony are happy, then? No arguments?"

Loki frowns slightly. "We're happy," he says, avoiding the second question.

Thanos sneers, moving back to his original position and taking a final bite of his taco. "Great," he says. "That is just _fantastic, _Lo'. I'm so glad you're happy. I would hate to see anything happen that would take that away from you," and Loki isn't sure if it's the food or the tone of Thanos' voice that makes him feel suddenly ill. The three of them leave as a strong wind is picking up, and Thanos yells across the parking lot:

"Be careful driving back, Lo'! The roads are slippery!"

_I hope you fucking crash and break your neck, _Loki thinks, before getting in his car and driving off. His fingers fumble for a moment, half frozen against the tape player, before he gives up and decides to ride in silence.

/

Tony arrives at the Italian restaurant at twelve-thirty, a full fifteen minutes earlier than Loki is supposed to show up, but he figures it'll be a nice surprise if he's the first one there. He's spent the morning doing science and is ready for an afternoon of relaxing.

(Loki didn't answer any of his texts, but Tony knows he got them because Loki always looks at his messages, especially when they're arranging a lunch or dinner date and can't do it at the apartment for whatever reason.)

At twelve-forty, he takes a seat near the front of the restaurant and orders wine.

At twelve forty-five, he texts Loki: '_hey, Shakespeare, you coming or what?'_

At one p.m., he brushes off the waiter for the fifth time, saying he'll wait even as his mouth waters with the scents of sausage and spaghetti coming from the kitchen.

At one-fifteen, he figures the professor must have detained Loki after all. He asks for a third—no, a fourth—glass of wine, then, hesitantly, orders a pizza. He figures Loki will forgive him if he starts first; he's fucking _starving. _

At one-thirty, Tony realizes Loki isn't coming at all. He eats his pizza sloppily, the cheese hanging in strings from his lips, the sauce smeared around his mouth, grease staining his fingers and the edges of his jacket sleeves. "Don't stare, Gramps, it's fucking rude," he says to an older man who is looking at him with disgust, then laughs, a little too loudly.

He cannot believe he's been stood up by his own boyfriend.

They ask him to leave, eventually, but he doesn't care. He texts Loki, smearing sauce on the phone screen with shaking fingers: _'hey, I just went ahead and ate, hope whatever you're doing is important', _then gets in his car and drives home. (He doesn't even come _close _to crashing, and let it be said that Tony Stark is an _excellent_ driver under the influence.)

He passes out on the sofa while trying to wait for Loki, and his lips are moving softly over the words _don't get too mad at him there's a good explanation _as he slips out of consciousness.

**A/N: First of a two-part chapter.**

**I would like to apologize for what's coming. Many thanks to GreenLoki for the idea(s). **


	6. Spreading Your Lies

Loki takes his time driving home, squinting into the darkening afternoon and trying to think of a plausible excuse as to why he is so late. A very small part of him wants to just give in and tell Tony the truth, but he knows he won't—not right now, anyway. It isn't just a feeling of having to protect Tony from Thanos anymore—it's shame, that he didn't mention Thanos' return sooner.

Traffic is heavy and he doesn't arrive back at the apartment until nearly six p.m. Tony's car is already parked in its usual spot, the bumper sticker on the back reading _'nearly married to a Shakespearean scholar', _and Loki's lips twitch as he locks his car doors and heads inside.

The smell of whiskey hits him almost instantly, and he does not have to look at Tony's form, lying out over the sofa, to know he's drunk off his ass. He drops his keys noisily onto the table by the door and Tony jerks awake, eyes sliding in and out of focus for a moment before settling on Loki. A sloppy grin stretches his face, and Loki sighs.

"Hey, look who's finally home," Tony says, getting up and swaying a little. "I was starting to wonder if you'd forgotten about me."

"Hardly," Loki murmurs, setting his bag down and avoiding Tony's eyes as he heads into the kitchen to wash his hands. "The professor decided to detain me after all."

"Hell, for _six hours_?" Tony asks, and he cannot keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"Is that so surprising?"

"Even for you, yeah." Tony's eyes narrow, and he walks around so that he can see Loki again. The lit major's back is to him, and he can just see a strip of skin between his shirt and jeans. "Are you hiding something from me?"

The question startles Loki, but he doesn't show it. "You know I would never lie to you, Stark," he says quietly, after a moment.

Tony folds his arms. "Fine," he says. "Tell me, what _exactly _did the professor find to talk about for six hours concerning Oscar Wilde?"

Loki turns so that he is facing Tony. He opens his mouth to reply, but before he can the physicist spits out another question:

"And how come you never called and told me you weren't gonna make it? I sat there for an hour waiting for you."

_You didn't text me, _Loki thinks, but he isn't going to say it, doesn't want to come off as a whiny asshole, so he just stays quiet, staring at Tony with those eyes, until Tony has to look away.

"Jesus," he mutters, running his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. "So you stayed with the professor for six hours talking about fucking Oscar fucking Wilde, and then you just come home expecting everything to be okay?"

"I can make the lunch up to you, Tony—"

"_It isn't about the fucking lunch!" _Tony shouts, slamming his fist against the kitchen counter. "It's about—" and then he stops, because what is he going to say? _It's about me worrying about you; it's about me still thinking about Thanos, and how he's still capable of everything he was capable of two years ago; it's about me needing you to be okay, because you're all I fucking have, Shakespeare, and you know that. _No, he can't say that, can't say any of it, even after two years he's not comfortable with sharing emotions, so he keeps quiet, his jaw clenching.

Loki glares at him. "It's about _what, _exactly?"

"Nothing," Tony snarls. A dull ache is starting up in the center of his chest, a burning pain that, he knows, will spread like fiery tendrils to every corner of his body if it's let go for too long.

"Of course, _nothing,_" Loki says, and wonders why he feels disappointed. He pushes past Tony, back into the front of the apartment, and grabs his jacket from his pile of stuff on the sofa.

"Where the hell are you going?" Tony asks, without turning, because he cannot have Loki seeing the way he's clutching at his chest now, gritting his teeth, a fine sheen of sweat forming on his forehead.

"I am not bound by law to babysit you when you are drunk, Stark," Loki snaps. "I will return in a few hours and perhaps then you will be ready to talk in a more rational manner."

"Yeah, maybe if you don't sound like you're quoting straight out of Roget's fucking Thesaurus," Tony yells back. There is no response, just the sound of the door opening and slamming shut, and Tony makes himself wait until he hears Loki's car start up before he moves to get his own jacket and keys. He knows from experience that if he hurries, he can make it to the hospital and get the deferoxamine injection before he slips into cardiac arrest.

He leaves as fast as he can, the ache throbbing dully between his lungs, and by the time the events start unfolding he's already in the hospital, a needle in his arm, watching the treatment slide into his veins and thinking, _how long until I die? _

/

When Loki leaves the apartment, he does it more to cool off than anything else. As with most of their arguments these days, this one was pointless and fueled by Loki's sheer terror that Tony will find out his secret. He drives aimlessly for half an hour, up and down back streets; once, he passes the college, and for a second considers—as he has been doing on and off for the past two years—going in and asking for a dorm room, but he decides against it. Tony's not easy to live with, but he's not impossible, either.

At six-forty, he thinks he will go back, try again. The silence of the car is too much and he reaches over to turn on his tape deck as he drives.

The voice that comes out nearly makes him crash his car. It's hollow, disembodied, like someone speaking into an underwater microphone, but there's no doubt that it's Thanos.

"_If you are hearing this, Lo', you've found the tape. Congratulations. I will explain to you eventually how I got it in your car—I'm sure you're just dying to know—but for now I need you to follow these simple instructions. _

"_Oh, and just in case you're sitting there thinking you can just drive home and get away from all this—and I know you are, because I know you—believe me when I tell you I know exactly where you live, and Amora is a good little lock picker, and I will have no qualms whatsoever about killing your boyfriend—properly, this time—if you don't comply."_

Loki feels a chill rush up his spine, and for a moment he thinks he is going to either faint or throw up or both. The world spins, and he stops the car, pushing 'pause' on the tape deck, his heart thudding hard in his chest. On the one hand, he could risk it, could go home, tell Tony the truth, and they could get out for a while, maybe stay with Thor and Jane or even with Steve and Phil, just until Thanos and Amora either get bored and leave or get caught and arrested. But even as he's thinking this, he knows how utterly unrealistic the idea is—Thanos knows his phone number. He knows Odin, and although they haven't spoken in two years Loki is pretty sure Odin would be delighted to hear from him again, and more than eager to help out in anything that would get Tony out of Loki's life forever.

He swallows hard, glancing in the direction of he and Tony's apartment. Later, when he thinks about this moment, he will wonder why the hell he didn't pull his cell phone out then, but at the moment he is too nervous, too confused. His hand is shaking badly as he presses 'play' and listens to Thanos' instructions on exactly where to go.

/

Thanos and Amora are sitting on the floor in their current place of residence—a tiny, one-room rental house that reeks of cat piss and something else, something fouler. It has a mattress, a roach-infested stove, a television set that gets exactly one grainy channel, and a bathroom so small you can only shut the door halfway when you go in. Despite the shitty conditions, it's one hundred dollars a month, and even though they have only been there for a week—or nearly—they are still expected to pay up before they leave.

"You think he'll come?" Amora asks, twining her arms around Thanos' waist.

He shakes her off. "He'll come," he says. "Trust me." He threatened Tony in the message—Loki's precious engineer.

Amora sits still for approximately two more seconds, then jumps to her feet and walks over to the stove, cranking a dial and allowing the gas to expel any roaches from the interior before setting a pan down on top of the fire and calling, "I'm fixing dinner, want anything?"

"Those burritos," Thanos reminds her, but she doesn't like burritos and ignores him, and he hears butter hitting the pan a moment later.

"Pancakes," she says. "How's pancakes sound?"

He sighs, glancing at his watch. "Fine," he says distractedly. He runs a finger over his knife, making sure it's still sharp—no sense in shooting Tony in an apartment complex, where anyone could hear—then stands up, walking to the window. "Where _is _he?"

"Skurge," Amora starts, raising her voice over the sizzling of batter on oil, but just then a car pulls up, sleek and gorgeous, and Thanos' eyes widen.

"He's here!" he yells.

"Well, go fucking tie him up or whatever the hell you wanted to do," Amora says, not really caring. "I'm fixing pancakes."

"Fine by me," Thanos says, pushing open the cracked screen door and walking outside. Loki is barely out of his car before Thanos is by his side, pushing the knife against his neck.

"Give me your keys," he hisses softly, "and your phone, too, come on… that's it, thanks, Lo', you're a gem… now come inside, just real quiet." He's got his free hand pressed so hard against Loki's neck he can feel his nails piercing skin, and wonders if he will make Loki bleed.

_Well, of course, _he thinks after a moment, sadistically, and laughs. Loki shoots him a quick, sharp look, but doesn't say anything, and Thanos knows he's thinking of the knife. They make their way into the shack, and Thanos kicks the door shut behind him.

"Amora, he's here!"

"Yeah, I _know_, Skurge, Jesus fucking Christ, you've said that already." Amora's irritation is tinged with the slightest bit of affection, and Loki finds himself wondering again at their relationship, and how exactly they work out.

Thanos pushes Loki onto the makeshift bed, and for a moment Loki is back in Thanos' dorm room two years ago, watching as he pushes his jeans down from his waist to his knees, feeling his fingers bruising his skin and being powerless to stop it, any of it. He starts shaking, and Thanos drops the knife, tossing it to the side and pinning Loki's wrists against the mattress. Loki struggles, then, for the first time, but Thanos is stronger than he is, and just laughs a little bit, those dead eyes shining.

"Amora," he calls, "could you pause the pancakes for five seconds and help me?"

There's a sigh from the kitchen; the sound of the fire decreases, and Amora appears, wearing a loose tunic draped over a skirt so short Loki can see a bit of her underwear—lacy, black, maybe a thong, though he's not sure. "What do you need me to do, knock him out?"

Thanos rolls his eyes. "For Christ's sake, no… get that rope, see, in the corner…" He gestures with his head, still holding Loki, who is still struggling, sweating now. He was unaware that fear had a scent, but he can smell it now, mixed with sweat.

Amora gets the rope and kneels behind Loki, grabbing his wrists from Thanos and tying them together. She's strong too, maybe stronger than Thanos, and it sends another wave of chills up Loki's spine. He imagines the two of them together, a team, and his stomach clenches.

"Now," says Thanos softly, standing up and folding his arms. "You're all taken care of."

"Fuck you," Loki whispers, glaring up at him. His voice is hoarse, trembling. His whole body is shaking, and he has to clench his teeth to keep from accidentally biting his tongue.

"Don't curse at me," Thanos snaps. "You're the one who came here so willingly—who knew that goddamn Tony Stark could be so important to you?"

Loki looks away without replying, and Thanos just snorts after a few seconds, pocketing his knife again and following Amora into the kitchen. Loki listens to them as Amora starts the fire up again, hears Thanos jingling Loki's keys around for a moment before setting them down somewhere, then hears a short, surprised laugh burst from the psychopath's lips.

"He didn't fucking turn his phone on!" he says, incredulously. "It's not even in sleep mode!"

Loki squeezes his eyes shut and sucks in a deep breath, and doesn't even try to fight it when the tears start coming.

**A/N: Sorry. **


	7. Doomsday

Thanos is gripping a bottle of whiskey by the neck and looks like he's trying to decide whether he wants to smash it against the wall or open it like a normal person. He has one arm slung across Amora's shoulders and is lightly kissing her neck, ignoring the fact that Loki is sitting less than two feet away from them, the rope wrapped around his wrists digging lightly into his skin.

"Tha—Skurge," Loki says. "I won't leave if you untie me."

Thanos doesn't reply, doesn't even look at him. He's taking his cell phone out and checking his messages; a moment later he grins, then sets the bottle down. "Justin's here," he says to Amora, who shrugs him off and stands up.

"Let him in, then," she mutters, heading into the kitchen.

"Who's Justin?" Loki asks.

"Hammer," says Thanos, in a tone of voice that makes it clear that he expects Loki to know who he's talking about, though of course he doesn't. "I think he has a couple classes with Tony."

He goes to the door and opens it, and there's a brief exchange before they come back into the room. Justin's short, shorter than Tony even, with glasses and thin brown hair and a small, cruel mouth. He reminds Loki of some animal—a ferret, maybe, or a weasel. He nods at Amora, who is standing at the stove with a half-eaten pancake in her hand, then sneers down at Loki.

"I can't believe you actually did it," he says, speaking to Thanos but staring at Loki, who shifts his bound wrists against the rough carpet and glares back, hatred and resentment simmering in his gaze.

"Yes, well," says Thanos, waving his hand and shivering a little. "Don't go around the college blabbing about it if you can help yourself."

Justin's grin indicates that he's not really listening. "What do you want me to do?" he asks, and Thanos reaches into his back pocket and pulls out Loki's car keys.

"Take his car and drive it out—I don't care whether you take it five miles up the road or out of this state, but take it somewhere hidden. Because I can promise you, once the word gets out that he's missing, the first thing they're going to look for is his car. And trust me, Justin Hammer—you do not want to interact with me if they happen to find it." He runs his thumb over the edge of his knife, just below his shirt. "Understood?"

Justin flips the keys around his hand and grins. "Got it," he says, walking back out and slamming the door behind him.

The second he's gone, Amora and Thanos dissolve into laughter, loud and hard and a little bit forced. "How the fuck is he going to get back?" Thanos chokes out after a while.

"Don't ask me," Amora says around a mouthful of pancake. "You're the one who was all 'oh yeah this kid looks okay, let's take him and have him help us out with my master plan'."

Thanos shrugs. He picks the whiskey bottle back up and takes it into the kitchen to open. Loki hears him drinking, heavily, the liquid sloshing around in the glass and then down his throat; when he returns and offers Amora the bottle, it's half empty. She takes it, eyeing him with something like caution as she tilts it back to her lips and drinks slowly. After she's finished, Thanos takes the bottle and sets it by their mattress, then slides an arm around her waist, pulling her against him, eyelids heavy as he looks at her. They seem to have forgotten that Loki is there as they fall back against the bed and fuck—hard, loud, and with an almost animalistic wildness. He pounds her into the mattress and Loki stares at the wall, twisting his wrists, trying to get them out of their binds.

When they finish, Thanos calls Loki over to him. "Sorry I left you all tied up, Lo'," he says, undoing the knot on the rope with shaking fingers, "but it was for your own good." The minute he's free, Loki stands up and heads for the door, and Amora, the sheet falling at her waist, grabs his ankle, tugs him down. She points a gun at his head—and he's not even sure where she got it, which is sickening in a way he doesn't even really want to think about—and Thanos laughs shortly.

"I'd rather think that Tony would want you back alive," is all he has to say, and Loki leans against the wall, his calves aching from having to stay in the same position for so long. He rubs his rope-burned wrists, wincing slightly at the pain. His stomach growls, loud and almost distasteful in the silence, but no one offers him food.

Thanos and Amora are nearly asleep when Justin returns, shivering, snow falling off his shoulders. He lets himself in, instead of knocking, and Thanos glares at him, looks like he wants to kill him right there, master plan be damned.

"I did it, man," says Justin, oblivious to Thanos' expression. He's too eager; it scares Loki, sends chills up his spine. "I hid his car."

"Great," Thanos mutters. "Where's the keys?"

Justin throws them over. They land next to Amora's head, tangling slightly in her hair, and Thanos reaches over her and grabs them, palming them and curling his fingers around the shiny metal.

"Thanks. You uh… remember what I wanted you to do with Tony, right?"

Loki's eyes go wide. "What?"

"Yes, of course," and Justin smiles, and it's not a nice smile, not at all. He takes out his own car keys and leaves, and Loki looks at Thanos, desperation clawing at him from the inside.

"What are you going to have done to Tony?" he asks.

"Don't worry about it," Thanos grunts into the mattress. "Fucking chill, Lo'. Go turn out the lights. We're leaving early in the morning."

Amora waves the gun around, a warning, and Loki turns the lights off without asking anything else, even though he desperately wants to know.

It does not occur to him, because he is so confused and exhausted and utterly terrified, to check Thanos' discarded jeans for his phone.

/

Tony doesn't arrive back at the apartment until nearly midnight, exhausted and drained, his chest still aching a little. Loki's car is still not in the parking lot, which he finds a bit odd, but after a minute he shrugs and decides not to think about it—he's probably back at Thor and Jane's, spending the night, cooling off from their argument. Tony goes inside, tossing his jacket across the back of one of the chairs, and sinks down onto the couch, breathing out a sigh and running his fingers through his hair. He glances at the heap of textbooks on the table—Physics, engineering; Loki's Latin, their shared astronomy—and grits his teeth, thinking of the long night ahead, the heap of schoolwork before him. He fixes himself a plate of leftover broccoli and cheese from a few nights ago and sits down again with the fullest intentions of starting on his latest essay on quarks, but before he can he passes out against the cushions, and doesn't wake up again until the sunlight streams through their back door windows and pierces his eyelids.

The first thing he notices is that Loki still isn't back. Confused, a little concerned—not like he'd ever admit it—Tony gets up and heads upstairs for a quick shower and a blood test—_fifty percent, _the monitor reads, and he tells himself everything's fine—then goes down to the kitchen. There are some of those cinnamon rolls Loki likes, and he has that with a glass of orange juice for breakfast while checking his phone for messages. There's only one, from Rhodey, wanting to know when _exactly _he plans on having their engineering project done by because Rhodey's sick of getting stuck with all the work.

_Okay, _Tony tells himself, licking frosting off his fingers and rinsing the remnants of juice out of his glass, _he's probably still pissed, probably at Thor's. _He taps back a quick response to Rhodey (_'you know you love doing all our work'), _then dials Thor's number. The phone rings six, seven times before a sleepy-sounding Jane answers.

"Hello?"

"Uh, yeah, hey Foster, it's Tony."

"Tony? What's up?"

He clears his throat; swallows. The inside of his mouth tastes like iron. "Could you put the Big Guy on for me?" he asks. "Assuming Blondie's awake, I mean."

"No, yeah, sure, no problem." There's a pause, then Thor booms:

"Anthony! What a pleasant surprise! To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

Tony breathes in. "Is Loki there?"

When Thor replies, he sounds confused. "Why would my brother be here?"

"We sort of may or may not have had an argument last night, and—wait, wait, he's _not _there?"

"No." Tony can _hear_ Thor's frown, and winces slightly. "Is he not with you, Anthony?"

"Yeah, Big Guy, he's here; I just called your place because I wanted to know if he's figured out the secret to human cloning yet so he can be in two places at once." Tony cannot keep the irritation out of his voice. "Jesus, Thor, of course he's not here. He left last night and he never came back."

Thor hesitates. "Loki would not travel suddenly mid-semester; not in the middle of his classes. Perhaps he's simply gone to the campus?"

"Yeah, okay, but where was he last night, then?"

"It is entirely plausible that my brother found shelter elsewhere; he could have stayed at Steven and Philip's place, or with Natasha and Clint."

"Yeah, I guess so," Tony mutters doubtfully. "Listen, Thor, I gotta go."

"Take care, Anthony. Oh, and do not worry on my brother's behalf too much—he will return to you before the day is out. This I can guarantee." Thor hangs up, and Tony sets his phone aside, a slight twinge of worry starting up in his chest. He dials Loki's cell, but it goes straight to voicemail, so he leaves a quick message and hangs up.

After a few seconds of hesitation, he heads out to class, leaving a note on the table by the door just in case Loki returns during the day:

'_I ate your cinnamon rolls because you weren't here. Sorry, Shakespeare, finders keepers. Anyway, text me when you get this note—not like I'm worried about you or anything._

'_Also, we can go out tonight, if you want—my treat, okay?'_

He does not put 'love' or 'sorry'. He hopes it's implied.

/

Tony checks his phone almost impulsively throughout the day, but there aren't any messages—not during Calculus, not during engineering, not during astronomy. By the time he gets to Physics, he's starting to seriously worry, running his fingers through his hair every so often, shaking a little bit. He sits next to Bruce, who glances over at him, eyebrows raised.

"You okay?" he asks. "You look like shit."

"Thanks," Tony replies, rolling his eyes. "No, I'm actually really not okay; Loki and I had this argument last night and he hasn't come back—I mean, he hasn't called or anything."

Bruce shrugs. "He's probably off somewhere blowing off steam. He'll probably be at the apartment when you go back tonight, probably say some bullshit about 'needing his space for a while'." He lightly shoves Tony's arm, an uncharacteristic gesture he only uses when he knows Tony's feeling particularly bad and wants to cheer him up. "The make-up sex is gonna be fantastic, right?"

Tony laughs shortly. "Yeah," he says, "I guess that could be what's going on." And then he winces a little, clutching at his chest. Bruce's eyebrows go up further.

"Heart attack?"

"No, I'm about five drinks away from that, Banner, but thanks for asking." Tony grins, all self-deprecation and sarcasm as usual, and lowers his shirt collar enough so that Bruce can see the swollen edges of the electromagnet; the crisscrossed red and purple lines on his skin. "This fucking thing is giving me iron poisoning." He taps at it lightly with a finger. "It's supposed to keep me alive, and it's really not."

If Bruce is surprised, he doesn't show it. "Does Loki know?"

"Not yet," mutters Tony, in a voice that says, _and he never will if I can help it. _

"Hasn't your doctor come up with any solutions for this? It looks pretty bad, Tony."

"I'm getting deferoxamine injections when I need them. They might put me on dialysis soon if it doesn't clear up." Tony shrugs. "I probably won't graduate, Bruce. Isn't that fucked up?"

Bruce doesn't say anything for a while, and Tony turns away from him, wishing he hadn't brought it up at all. He's taking care of it himself, anyway, no one needs to know about it, especially not Bruce Banner, especially not now, with Loki potentially missing. He traces a pathway across its circular exterior through his shirt and is startled to feel Bruce's hand on his shoulder.

"We could do it," he says. "Save your life, I mean. We could make something here, in the lab, when there aren't classes. I took an extra course last semester in biochemistry, and there are elements, Tony, that you can put in your body. Elements that we could get our hands on if we contact the right people."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Tony says, and wonders why he's feeling so irritated all of a sudden. "I don't want to turn into the freak show news story my dad's always wanted me to be." He turns away from Bruce and won't speak to him for the rest of the period. (The back of his throat still tastes like iron, all metallic and strange, and he wants to hit something for no apparent reason.)

When the bell rings, Bruce drops a piece of paper on Tony's still-unopened textbook before walking out, and Tony waits for a bit before unfolding it. _'Call me if you change your mind, Tony,' _it reads. _'You don't have to do everything alone.'_

He does. He knows he does, knows it as he pulls his bag over his shoulder and heads out, but he pockets the note instead of throwing it away, and by the time he's in his car he's going through his contacts list, making sure Bruce's number is still there.


	8. Make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven

The way Thanos remembers it, his initial meeting of Amora was like this:

It had been about two months—maybe a little bit more, but he's never been as into counting exact times as Loki—since he'd left Manhattan, and since then he'd been staying in various places: shelters, abandoned churches, even the backs of soup kitchens, if he was able to sneak past the servers after a meal. He was feeling oddly lonely—and it was hot, for early March—so he went to a bar, surrounded himself with the sharp smell of cigarettes and the clink of glasses. Amora was serving drinks from behind the bar, and he caught sight of her almost immediately, with her dress clinging to her frame and her hair flowing down past her shoulders. It had been blond at the time, he remembers, and wonders why she's dyed it that awful shade of shit since then.

He'd gone up to her, leaning against the bar, trying to be charming without making eye contact. "You free after your shift tonight?" he asked, and she'd smiled uncomfortably, looking over her shoulder as if expecting someone to come and save her from him. When no one appeared, she straightened up, tugging down on her dress slightly.

"Why do you care?" she asked, and he remembers feeling that hot surge of irritation, bordering on anger, before forcing it to recede.

"I was kind of wondering if you'd want to go somewhere with me," he'd said. "I mean, assuming you don't already have a ton of guys lined up to fuck you—if you'll pardon my language."

She'd laughed at that, and tried to catch herself before he saw, but it was too late, and the atmosphere between them was already changing. "I don't," she said, "but how do you know I'm not into girls?"

He shrugged. "That's a risk I'm willing to take," he'd said, raising an eyebrow, and she'd bit down on her lower lip and ducked her head to hide the blush that was starting to rise up on her cheeks. She'd started cleaning some glasses behind the counter, and Thanos, sensing victory, had leaned forward a little more and pressed, "So that's a yes, then?"

"I'm not saying one way or the other."

Thanos wasn't used to having anyone, girls or guys, play hard to get with him, and it was a challenge he thought he could get used to, maybe even like. "Will you at least tell me your name?"

"Find it out," she'd said, flippantly, and turned and walked into the back of the bar without even glancing over her shoulder.

(He remembers thinking her hair was like spun gold that first night; how he'd thought, if he held it in his hands, it would weigh heavy as the element it resembled.)

It hadn't taken him long to figure out who she was—the regulars knew her, knew how Thanos felt looking at her. "She's called Amora," they said. "Real fucking cocktease, that one; she don't put out much, but when she does…" He found out that some of them got off after leaving the bar by thinking about her, and was disgusted by the thought without really knowing why.

"When does her shift end?" he'd asked.

"Eleven p.m. sharp," one of them had said, "although sometimes she stays later and does fifteen cent lap dances for the more sober guys. I'd watch her if I were you, man."

"She'll be the one who'll have to watch me," Thanos murmured, but no one heard him.

He'd stayed until the end of her shift; watched her unfold her apron and put it on a hook before walking out. She threw some of the men a quick, flirtatious wink, then walked out to a few whistles and catcalls. Thanos followed her with his eyes and allowed her to get halfway to the bus stop before standing up and walking out after her. When he caught up with her, he put his hand on her shoulder, and he remembers the way she tensed and jumped, turning fast, like she expected him to murder her in the street.

"Remember me?" he'd asked, and a very small, surprised smile had flitted across her face—like she was used to men asking her on a date, then standing her up.

"How could I forget you?" She held out her hand. "I'm Amora, in case those letches didn't already introduce me to you, and you are…?"

Nearly two years later, he's still not sure what made him lie—if it's because he was slightly drunk, or because his name was still on the wanted posters throughout several counties at that time, or what, but for whatever reason Thanos found himself gripping her hand tight, shaking it, and saying:

"Skurge. My name's Skurge."

After that, they became partners, both for sex and stealing. He remembers the first night they fucked—in his car, steaming up the windows, ripping a hole in the fabric of the floor with his nails because it was so thin. He never told her about Manhattan, or Loki, even though from time to time she woke him up and told him he'd been saying that name in his sleep. No one ever came looking for her—not her boss at the bar, not her family, not anyone. Once, he'd asked her if she had friends or parents, and she'd told him to fuck off and mind his own business, so he hadn't pushed further.

Two years later, of course, he's got a slightly better notion of Amora's past—estranged mother, abusive father, brother in a mental institution, sister gone off with some other woman to Mexico City—but that's all she's told him.

(Not as if he minds. He's got demons of his own to take care of, most of which are far worse than hers.)

They still run around together, from place to place, trying to avoid spending too much money at one time. He's always afraid she'll tire of him, but she hasn't yet. Sometimes he looks at her when she's sleeping and thinks, _this is the one, _and has to drink to keep from feeling all weird and warm like that.

He thinks maybe part of the reason why he took Loki at all was because he needs a distraction from Amora, and everything human in him that she's starting to bring out into the open.

/

By the time Tony gets to his car, he's made up his mind. He sends Bruce a brief text—_'I'm going to pick up dinner; meet me at my place'—_then heads off to Burger King. He hopes Bruce won't be the only person waiting for him at his apartment. He's pretty sure he can forgive Loki for never texting him to let him know where he is… if he shows up with some fancy dish from a restaurant and does that thing with his tongue.

The drive-thru is pretty crowded, mostly with other Berkeley students, and Tony amuses himself by blaring AC/DC through the car's open windows and counting the amount of annoyed old women he sees staring at him from the hair salon across the street. He's counted ten by the time he reaches the speakers. He orders a cheeseburger and fries for himself and a plain burger and onion rings for Bruce, pays—the cashier recognizes him as Howard's son and tries to give him a discount, but he refuses, and hates to think that he's known as _son-of-that-asshole-rich-guy_—then heads back home. Loki's car isn't there, and he tries not to think about what that could mean as he gets out of the car and walks up to where Bruce is leaned against the doorframe, waiting for him.

"So you changed your mind?" Bruce asks, taking the proffered bag from Tony's outstretched hand and straightening up as he inserts the key into the lock.

"Scientific experiments that involve saving my life?" Tony says, avoiding Bruce's eyes as he walks in and flips up the light switch. "How the hell could I say no?"

They sit on the sofa, spreading out Physics textbooks and a Chemistry book Bruce must have gotten from the library. Tony gets the copy of his medical file that Yinsen gave him after his last hospital visit and they sit down, cramming fries and onion rings into their mouths before starting.

"You said you get deferoxamine injections for this thing?" Bruce asks, flipping to the index of the Chemistry book and running a grease-stained finger down the page.

"And I'm going on dialysis in a month."

Bruce pauses, glancing over at Tony, his burger halfway to his mouth. "Well," he says, softly, after a few seconds. "I guess we'd better find your cure fast."

Tony gets a strange look on his face, like he can't decide whether to laugh or kill someone, but all he says is, "I think that would be the best idea, yeah."

Fifteen minutes later, Bruce has drawn up diagrams of the four elements used to create deferoxamine—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen—and is trying to figure out how to combine the different skeletal chemical formulas into one major formula. He has an idea that if he can just get them together, he can (maybe) create a new element, one that will be able to be inserted into Tony's electromagnet and feed him a constant supply of deferoxamine—or something like it. Something more powerful, hopefully. Tony is leaning against the sofa, staring blankly at the Physics textbook and licking the remains of his cheeseburger off his fingers, when there is a knock at the door.

"It isn't Loki," he says, more to himself than to Bruce, standing up and going to open it. "He has a key." Still, he can't keep from hoping, and is more than a little disappointed when it's only that freak Justin Hammer from his engineering class, the one who looks at he and Rhodey sometimes like he wishes he could be them.

"Hammer," he says, "hey, sorry, I'm not donating anything tonight, kinda busy, could you come back later?" He's trying to shut the door in Justin's face, but the younger man leans against it with his full body weight and glares at Tony.

"Let me in," he says. "I need to tell you something. It's kind of serious."

Reluctantly, Tony lets up on his struggle with the door—if only because the strain is hurting his chest. "You haven't sabotaged my project, have you? Not that it would be any trouble to rebuild, but that's kind of a dick move for you to pull, especially considering the fact that Rhodey did most of the work and you'll really have to tell him what you did—"

"I didn't sabotage anything," Justin interrupts. He reaches up and adjusts his glasses, pulling his fingers through his hair and giving it the appearance of a partially-collapsed bouffant. "I need to tell you something about Loki."

Tony, who had just opened his mouth to ask if Justin wanted anything, like a partially eaten French fry or maybe one of the leaves of lettuce that had fallen out of his burger, stops, his entire body stiffening. Slowly, he turns to face Justin, his mouth set in a thin line. Bruce is looking up from the textbook, his eyebrows raised slightly.

"Talk," Tony says.

Justin sucks in a deep breath. "Loki," he says, "has been taken."

Tony's eyebrows go up, and he folds his arms across his chest. "Taken," he repeats, skeptically, because Justin isn't exactly the first person he'd trust. "What do you mean by that?"

"Kidnapped," Justin clarifies, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose again. "Like a victim."

A short burst of laughter escapes Tony's lips. "Jesus, Justin," he says. "I know you were jealous of me and Rhodey's project, but do you have to go through all this? Couldn't you just come out and say 'hey Tony, why don't you give me tips on how to be half as awesome as you are, because I know I'm a loser who desires friends', and I'd consider it. Maybe. If you paid me in cash."

Bruce snorts, and Justin frowns. "I'm not lying," he says. "The people who took Loki, their names are Amora and Skurge, and they're on the run right now, they've probably already made it to upstate New York by this point—"

"Look, just shut the fuck up," Tony interrupts, sounding exhausted. "I'm fucking in the middle of some really important shit, and I don't have time—"

Justin pulls out his phone and presses a button. There's a pause, then a burst of static, and suddenly Loki's voice comes through, unmistakable and shaking a little bit:

"_You are not frightening me, you know; I will get out of this," _and then another voice, a voice that Tony never thought he'd hear again, a voice that sends chills up his spine:

"_You'll get out of it when I'm ready to let you go, you fucking shit. Now lay back and shut up."_

Tony's not sure why Justin's calling him 'Skurge', but there's no mistaking it, it's definitely Thanos. He thinks he's going to be sick, and glances over his shoulder at Bruce, his eyes wild and wide and panicked. A look of concern flashes across Bruce's face, but it's clear he doesn't recognize the voice.

"Skurge sent me that this morning," says Justin, "on a media file. He said that Loki gave him a little trouble in the car on the way upstate, and they had to drug him, but everything's okay now."

"They had to drug him?" Tony repeats, a little too loudly, spinning around and heading into the kitchen. His hands shake as he pulls a bottle of Stolichnaya out of the refrigerator and cracks off the top with a bottle opener. Tilting the top back to his lips, he drinks, the vodka burning his throat, his stomach. "What are they doing with him now? Where are they? Why the fuck are you telling me this?"

Justin hesitates for a second, then sets his phone down and sighs. "I am here to help you, Tony. I'm here to help you get Loki back."

Tony raises his eyebrows again, then pours some of the Stolichnaya into a glass and puts in a few ice cubes before returning to the living room. "You want to help me," he says, skeptical again. His heart is racing, hard, below the electromagnet, and he can feel sweat forming on his forehead. He's afraid that if he talks too much, he might start crying, and he can't have that.

"I want to help you," Justin repeats. He's staring Tony right in the eye, his arms folded, and after a few seconds Tony sighs. He glances again at Bruce, who shrugs, as if to say, _well, what other options do we have?_

"Tell me what I have to do," Tony says, taking another drink and trying not to feel too repulsed by the fact that he's just had to ask two people for help in less than twenty-four hours.


	9. The Deed is Done

"So," is the first thing Loki hears as he's coming back into consciousness, "do you want me to go get the chips, or will you?"

Loki opens his eyes halfway and shifts them slightly to the right, where he can just see Thanos and Amora from where he's lying, his body pressed against something hard, his hands tied again. They are standing near the door, conferring in low voices, Amora's hand wrapped loosely around a gun, like she's forgotten she's holding it. Thanos is holding Loki's cell phone, rolling it between his hands, swiping his thumb across the still-dark screen from time to time, out of habit.

"I'll get them," Amora says. "You want Doritos or what?"

"Andy Capp's," is what Thanos says, glancing over at Loki and grinning when he sees that his eyes are open. "You okay with that, Lo'?"

Loki's lips part, but before he can get his muscles to work, Thanos is turning away. He puts his hand on Amora's cheek and says something else to her, something too low for Loki to hear, and she nods once before turning and walking out, setting the gun on a side table as she goes. Thanos picks it up and taps it against the side of the phone experimentally before walking over and crouching down next to Loki.

"So," he says, softly. "You're awake."

It's hard for him to focus on anything—Thanos' face, where he is, how much time has passed—but he manages to open his eyes all the way and forces himself to swallow past his tongue, which feels too thick in his mouth.

"Temazepam." Thanos reaches out and lightly pushes a strand of Loki's hair away from his face, and he's still too weak from the drug to do much more than roll his head slightly to the side. "It's a hypnotic benzodiazepine; a sleeping agent. I take them, when I remember."

Loki's throat works and after a few seconds he manages a hoarse, "Why—"

"Did you really think I'd believe that horseshit you spewed last night about how you wouldn't leave if I untied you?" Thanos shifts his weight, getting comfortable on the floor, setting the gun down next to him and placing the phone on his knee. "No, Loki, I had to drug you. It's going to wear off soon, if that's what you're worried about, but the effects are pretty strong. Try to move now and you'll find yourself real sorry real fast." He smiles, not friendly, eyes shifting downward for a second, and Loki knows he's not just talking about weak muscles giving out in his legs. He stares at his phone, perched just out of his reach, and Thanos follows his gaze and laughs shortly.

"You'll have this back when I say you can have it back," he says, and Loki has to strain to hear him add under his breath, "or never."

He can't say he's surprised.

They are both quiet for a bit, listening to the wind whistling through the trees outside the small shack they are currently inhabiting. One of the windows is slightly loose, and it rattles, letting in bursts of cold air. Thanos' eyes travel around him, up to the cracked ceiling, then to the kitchen, then down to the stained carpet which, to Loki, smells like mold and something else, something dead.

"This is me and Amora's place," he says. "We're way upstate; six, maybe seven hundred miles from the border. This town, it doesn't even have a name. Isn't that fascinating?"

"Hmm," Loki mutters, distractedly. He stares at a crack in the wall until his vision starts spinning and he has to shut his eyes to avoid the sudden dizziness. Clarity is slowly returning, and he vaguely remembers getting in Thanos' car earlier and snapping:

"_When Tony comes, and he will, there will be no power on earth that can keep him from killing you, and Justin, and that little quim you've kept so nice and tucked away for so long now." _After that, he thinks, is probably when he was drugged, although he's not one hundred percent sure.

And then he remembers Tony—really _remembers _him, like there'd been a film over his mind and it was suddenly lifted—and, panicking, he struggles to sit up. Another wave of dizziness washes over him and he has to clench his jaw to keep from vomiting. A headache pounds its way into his skull, and he falls against the carpet again, breathing hard.

"Chill, Lo'," Thanos says, without really looking at him, still running his fingers absently over the screen of his phone. "Don't overexert yourself."

"Tony," says Loki. "What have you done with him?"

Thanos rolls his eyes and sounds exasperated when he replies:

"Didn't we go over this last night? I didn't do _anything _to your precious Anthony Stark. He's still in his apartment. He's fine." There's a pause, then a slow, wicked smile curls the corners of his lips. "_Although, _I must admit, he is _certainly _going to be confused about whose side young Justin Hammer is on after a while."

The Temazepam must leave the body slowly, is all Loki can think as he watches Thanos get up and walk into the kitchen with the phone and the gun, because he can't bring himself to react, at least not the way he would normally. All he can do is shift his body slightly to ease the pressure on his hands, hissing softly through his teeth as pain arcs up his arms and into his shoulders, and wonder, as he has been doing for over twelve hours now, why exactly Thanos took him to begin with.

When Amora comes back, she's carrying a bag of Andy Capp's in one hand and a bottle of cheap wine in the other. She sets both on the table, along with her car keys, and Thanos, who has been trying to get television reception by rocking the set back and forth with his foot, finally gives up and unties Loki's wrists, pulling him up by his arm. He winces, rubbing the raw skin, and stumbles a little as he walks to the table. He's still dizzy, but not so much as before.

"This wine is okay, Skurge?" Amora asks as the three of them sit down—_like _The Brady Bunch _gone to hell, _Loki thinks, and bites back a surge of hysterical laughter threatening to burst forth from his lips. Thanos sniffs the mouth of the bottle and shrugs, pulling at the bag of chips until it opens.

"It's all right," he says.

"I spent fourteen dollars on this shit, asshole," Amora says, punching his arm. He punches her too, not hard, and they both laugh a little before she gets the bottle opener and pours them each a drink.

"I'd prefer water," says Loki quietly, "if it's all the same to you."

"It isn't," says Thanos shortly, "and if you try to run, you are going to be dead before you've gotten halfway to the door."

"I cannot imagine where you'd get the idea that I'd run," Loki snarls. Thanos hits him, once, across the face, and judging from the soreness Loki feels he can tell that this is not the first time he's been slapped since last night. He wonders if it was before or after the benzodiazepine was administered.

"Eat," grunts Amora, who is already halfway through her second glass of wine.

Loki pulls three chips from the bag. He's starving, of course; he hasn't eaten since that damn Mexican dinner they had yesterday afternoon, but he's not about to eat more, not when they're forcing him to. The flavor is something spicy—Jalapeno Cheddar or maybe Flaming Hot—and it mixes with the strange, metallic taste of the drug, still lingering in the back of his throat, and makes him gag.

Thanos' phone buzzes, and he pulls it out of his back pocket and hits a button on the screen. Justin Hammer's voice floats through the air a few seconds later:

"The deed is done," and both Thanos and Loki recognize the slight changing of the _Macbeth _quote.

"Great," says Thanos, shoving a few more chips into his mouth and washing them down with wine. "You're still at Tony's?"

"I left," Justin says. "Just a few seconds ago. Why, you need me to go back?"

"No, no." Thanos wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and smiles. "That's okay. You've done all you can for the night, Hammer. Thank you." He turns to Loki, making eye contact, death blazing in his irises, and though he's still speaking to Justin, Loki can tell the message is really for him:

"_These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad… A little water clears us of this deed, _right, Justin?"

A pause. Then, slightly muffled, "Yeah, yeah, Skurge, you're probably right." He hangs up, and Thanos laughs shortly, putting his phone away and sliding his hand over Amora's.

"Young Justin Hammer can't follow the laws of Shakespeare as well as us learned scholars," he says, still staring at Loki, almost as if he's challenging him.

"Mm," Loki murmurs, and swallows the last of his chips.

/

Long after Justin leaves the apartment, Tony stares at the door, as if half-expecting it to open, revealing Loki, already returned. Justin's told him about what's been happening—Thanos apparently somehow slipped a recorded tape into Loki's car while he was away, which is really fucking weird—and now he, Loki, and some chick named Amora are god-knows-where in upstate New York, or someplace close, doing god-knows-what in some little shack off the Interstate. He tells him Thanos—and he keeps calling him 'Skurge', and it's grating on Tony's nerves—wants something from him; what, exactly, he hasn't specified, but Justin is ninety-seven percent sure it's money.

Tony doubts that, but he lets it slide.

Bruce is still sitting on the sofa, the Physics book balanced on one knee, his partially eaten hamburger now gone cold and soft with grease in his hand. When the silence has become too thick, he says:

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna fucking get Loki back," Tony snarls, running his fingers through his hair in agitation and causing it to stand on end. "And then I'm going to kill that fucking bastard Thanos for taking him from me." He takes a final swig of the Stolichnaya he'd opened earlier and ignores Bruce's look of surprise at the name. "I'm calling Thor first."

Bruce raises an eyebrow. "What about the police?"

Tony glares at him, positively _glares _and it's then that Bruce sees, really _sees, _the need Tony has to do everything himself, and how desperately he wants to avoid asking for help, and, underneath it all, a slow, simmering rage, and a fear for Loki's life.

"The police? Nah," he says. "You call them after someone's been missing for over twenty-four hours, anyway. I'm not letting Loki stay gone that long." He pulls out his cell phone and dials Thor's number, pacing into the kitchen, and when Bruce leaves he hardly notices.

Thor answers after a few rings. "Anthony!" he says when Tony's spoken. "What a pleasant—"

"Yeah, yeah, save the formalities for a remake of _Pride and Prejudice,_" Tony interrupts. "Listen, Thor, I have to tell you some serious shit, and you can't freak out, okay, Big Guy? I mean it this time."

There's a pause. Then Thor murmurs his consent to 'not freaking out', sounding slightly worried.

"It's your brother," Tony says. His voice catches suddenly, startling him, and he presses his hand against the warmth of the electromagnet to steady himself. "Loki's been kidnapped by Thanos."

"He's been _what?" _Thor is bellowing, and Tony can see him now, red-faced and swelling in that tiny apartment of he and Jane's.

"You're freaking out, buddy," Tony says.

"Goddammit, Anthony, yes, I am 'freaking out'!" Thor roars. It's the first time Tony's ever heard him really curse, and it's surprising, and a little bit humorous despite the circumstances. "You mean to tell me that Thanos has been back here, has seen my brother, and you did not deign to tell me this?"

"Uh." Tony pauses. "No, I didn't know he was back—"

"There must have been _knowledge _of his presence, elseways he would not have known where you live!"

"He didn't take Loki from our apartment, he got him in his car—"

"_I will find Thanatos and I will murder him," _Thor booms, using Thanos' full name for the first time since they'd met him so long ago, and Tony doesn't think he heard his last sentence at all.

"You want me to come over?" Tony asks. "I mean, we could have a few drinks, figure out a plan—"

"Nay, it will not do to have us both here. God knows where Thanos is lurking now." Thor drops his voice maybe two decibels. "I will see you between classes tomorrow, Anthony. That is when we shall begin discussing what is to be done." He hangs up before Tony can tell him about Justin Hammer, and the physicist sighs softly, tossing his phone on the kitchen counter and leaning against the sink, staring out the window at the rapidly darkening sky.

He needs another drink.

**A/N: Okay, so, sorry this took a while to get out—work is draining all my energy. **

**Thanks for all the reviews so far—I love you guys so much! **


	10. No Dawn, No Day

_Tony traces his hand slowly down the side of Loki's face, down to his neck, allowing his fingers to rest at the hollow of his throat, where the skin is soft and tastes slightly of apples. He leans in and lightly kisses the tip of Loki's nose, and the younger man laughs quietly, and Tony feels the vibration of his voice through his hand. _

"Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love," _Loki murmurs, kissing Tony back, and the physicist reaches up and cards his fingers through Loki's hair. _

"_Always quoting, huh, Shakespeare?" he says, and they both smile at the play on words. _

_They stay there for the rest of the afternoon, the sunlight slowly creeping in through the window, and then out again. Tony likes that Loki is skipping class solely for him. He says something about it, later, and Loki, who was mouthing at his collarbone, abruptly ducks his head, hiding his smile. _

"_Don't press your luck, Stark; I can't say it will happen again," is all he says, but both of them know he doesn't mean it._

Tony jerks awake, the dream fading as the bell rings, signaling the end of class. His hair is sticking to his forehead in sweaty clumps, and the inside of his mouth feels dry. Quickly, he checks under his shirt—no scars today, and that's good, isn't it—then grabs his bag and heads out, rubbing his eyes and unsuccessfully covering a yawn behind one hand. He barely got any sleep last night—too much to drink in the fridge; no time to stop and think about resting—but he doubts lying down would've had much impact anyway. All he can think about is Loki, in the clutches of Thanos, and how, with his electromagnet acting up the way it is, he's utterly powerless to do anything about it.

It's been almost two full days since Loki disappeared, and Tony misses him more than he can stand.

He sees Thor not too long after leaving the building, and hesitates before going to him. The elder Odinson is standing there, staring at his phone, looking as lost and upset as Tony's ever seen him; when he hears his footsteps, he looks up and forces a smile.

"Anthony," he says. "Any word from my brother?"

Tony shakes his head. "Just like him, keeping us in the dark about this." He laughs shortly, sighs, and pulls his own phone out, sliding his thumb over his contacts until he gets to _'Shakespeare'. _He presses down on the name and waits, but the phone rings and rings, and no one picks up on the other end.

"I bet Thanos' got him tied up somewhere, probably hanging from his thumbs in a basement—"

"I wish you would not make light of this," Thor mutters. "Loki promised me that if Thanos ever came to him again, he'd tell me—"

"Hey, he said that to me too, y'know. It's not like I knew the bastard was back before now."

"Regardless of who knew what before this date, I think the most important thing is to remember that right now, more than anything else, my brother needs us to find him." Thor breathes out heavily, and the air crackles and smokes in front of his mouth. "It is my belief that the best way to start would be by finding out where exactly Thanos is living. I can start by—" But what Thor can start by, Tony never finds out, because at that exact moment Justin comes up, his glasses slightly askew on the bridge of his nose, a small smile on his face as he checks his phone messages.

"Tony," he says, conversationally. "How's it going? Heard from Loki?"

Thor frowns at the mention of his brother. "Who are you? Who is this, Anthony?"

"Uh." Tony glances distractedly at Justin, then at Thor. "This is Justin Hammer; he's got some insider information on where Loki is. He's like my private source for all things regarding the kidnapping—I mean we aren't the best of friends, but he's all right." He claps Justin on the shoulder, once, and Justin smiles tightly and holds out his hand to Thor.

"Pleased to meet you," he says.

"Hmm," Thor grunts, eyeing Justin's hand without taking it. "I am Thor, Loki's brother. If you mean harm by him, believe me: I will not allow you to get away with it."

"Why would I want to harm your brother?" Justin asks automatically, twitching his glasses up further on his nose and glancing at Tony.

Thor's frown deepens, and he doesn't reply, just turns to Tony. "Since you are now otherwise occupied, I shall leave you. But Anthony—keep me posted. And know this: that I shall, to the best of my abilities, try to find where my brother is being held hostage." He turns and walks off, and Justin watches him go for a few seconds before turning away.

"Why do I get the feeling that guy doesn't trust me?" he asks.

"Probably because he doesn't," says Tony shortly. "Loki's the most important thing in Thor's life, Hammer." He doesn't add _and in mine; _he can't bring himself to do so, not yet. "Do you have anything new on them?"

"Just that they are still in the shack upstate." Justin shrugs; then, as though it's just occurred to him, he adds:

"So listen, I'm pretty hungry, can we get something to eat and go to your place?"

"Flattering offer, but you have to remember I'm in the first monogamous relationship I've been in ever, so I'll have to turn you down."

Justin frowns for a second, then laughs, too loudly. "Always with the quick ones, Tony."

"I reserve the quick ones for the few seconds between classes," Tony says, and grins. Justin does that too-loud laugh again, and Tony rolls his eyes. "So if not for sex, then why do you want to come to my apartment?"

"It would be more comfortable discussing the particulars of Skurge and Amora's whereabouts there than here in the cold."

He has a point, but Tony just shrugs and pulls out his keys. "Well, come on then," he grunts. They get Taco Bell—some of the shittiest food Tony's ever had, but then he figures why should he pay for anything better when he's with Justin—and head back to his apartment. He drops his keys in the bowl by the door and grabs the note he left out for Loki yesterday—before he knew—folding it into a tiny square and slipping it behind the sofa. He's in the kitchen, getting drinks out of the refrigerator, and doesn't notice Justin slipping upstairs and into his bathroom. By the time Tony's sitting on the sofa, Justin's come back out, and they eat their tacos mostly in silence.

When Justin finishes his, he stands, wiping his greasy fingers on the back of his jeans. Tony stands too, and frowns.

"Wait, where are you going, we haven't talked about Loki yet—"

"I'm sorry, I've just remembered how pressed I am for time," Justin interrupts. "Text me later, okay? I can give you more information then."

"Like hell you can," Tony snarls under his breath, but Justin's already halfway out the door and doesn't hear him. He lets out a frustrated groan and sinks back against the sofa cushions, running his fingers through his hair. His chest aches, though whether it's from the iron poisoning or from the stress, he can't be sure.

After a few minutes, Tony calls Bruce and asks him if they can meet in the science lab in half an hour. He heads into the bathroom and checks his blood toxicity level—_sixty percent, _up by ten just since yesterday, and he tells himself it's okay, but then he starts shaking. Badly. His hand ends up knocking the soap dish off the counter, and one of the shards pierces his skin. He ends up going to the hospital instead of meeting Bruce at the lab, and hates himself even more for delaying the process yet again.

_Loki will be dead long before I can reach him, _is all he can think, watching Yinsen stitching up his cut, and wonders why the fuck he destroys everything he touches.

/

Thanos is stretched out over the sofa, one long leg resting against the wall, the other draped onto the floor, when he gets the text from Justin. _'The brother is involved now,' _it reads. _'And there's something really interesting about Tony that I'm going to tell Loki next time I visit.' _It takes two seconds for Thanos to realize that "the brother" means Thor, and then he's off the sofa and about two inches away from Loki.

"Hey," he snarls softly, "your brother knows I took you. Any idea of how that might've happened?"

"Telecommunication?" Loki suggests, staring at the floor. Thanos' hand comes out and catches him on the jaw, and his body jerks sideways.

"_Don't _be fucking sarcastic with me. You know what I'm getting at, Lo'."

"Yeah, I do, and you know as well as I that it would be impossible for me to contact Thor while I'm here. I don't even know where you've put my phone."

Amora, coming in at that moment with a package of ground meat under her arm, says:

"Why are we discussing Loki's phone?"

Thanos whips his head around and he stares at her. "Thor knows," he says. "Loki must have told him. There is no other way."

"Unless Tony said something," Loki says.

Thanos' entire body tenses up, and both Loki and Amora see his hand go for his gun. Amora starts forward, and for a second Loki shuts his eyes; thinks, _I will die, and this will be over. _

Then Thanos relaxes slightly, and laughs a little. "No, no," he says. "Loki's right. It's entirely plausible that Tony told Thor. Except now they'll both be coming to look for us. We're going to have to be extra careful, aren't we, Lo'?"

Loki doesn't answer, and Thanos grabs his wrist, jerking it backwards. "Because if we _aren't,_" he continues, snarling again, "I might have to use this on your brother." He touches the gun, sliding his fingers over the sleek metal surface, and a shiver runs over the course of Loki's entire body. "And I won't hesitate to shoot Tony, either, for involving someone else. Is that clear?"

"Yes," says Loki, after a few seconds. "Except you haven't really had much luck shooting Tony in the past, have you?"

Amora raises her eyebrows. "Wait, what?" she says, while Thanos digs his fingers into Loki's wrists, hard enough to bruise, and curves his fingers around the trigger of the gun.

"It's not important," he says, and then, in a lower voice, to Loki, "You had better shut the fuck up, you little wiseass shit, or you'll find yourself underground faster than you can quote one of your goddamn Shakespeare plays."

Loki winces against Thanos' tight grip. "_The rest is silence," _he murmurs, quoting.

Thanos narrows his eyes, but doesn't say anything else. After a few seconds Amora goes into the kitchen with the package of ground meat, and Thanos releases Loki's wrist. He rubs it, staring at the ugly purple splotches against his pale skin, wondering how long they'll stay this time.

Outside, the snow begins to fall, hissing as it hits the hard ground.


	11. The Rest is Silence

"This is it," Tony calls over his shoulder to Bruce. "I got the carbon to start bonding with the oxygen in this container." He adjusts his facial mask and Bruce, glancing over, sees the corners of his eyes crinkle up. "If this goes the way I want it to—which it will—I'm going to be able to create a low enough concentration of carbon monoxide to have a man-made vasodilator."

Bruce walks over and leans against the table Tony's working at. "And that's good? To have carbon monoxide in your body?"

"Hey." Tony claps Bruce on the shoulder. "You've studied anatomy, you know how it works. In small amounts, yeah, this is fine. The vasodilator will open up my blood vessels long enough to give me a slight release in pressure, which will temporarily stabilize the effects of the iron poisoning."

"Temporarily," Bruce repeats, as Tony turns one of the valves. There's a soft hissing sound inside the tank, but Tony doesn't look worried. "What about when it—"

Tony holds up a hand, interrupting. "Leave it to me, Banner, okay? You act like I don't know what I'm doing. Believe me, I know _exactly _what I'm doing. I know what I'm up against—fuck, I even know my time constraints, and that's impressive, considering the fact that usually I'm writing ten page term papers the night before they're due."

Bruce doesn't smile. "Tony, I'm helping you for a reason—"

"Yeah, you're supplying moral support and the elements, Bruce, and that's great. But I'm the one who made the carbon atom bind to the oxygen, and that's exactly what I needed at this point—" He stops talking abruptly when the hissing sound becomes a whine, and a red light begins flashing in the tank.

"Shit," Tony says. "Bruce, what's the digital reading for the ppm in here?"

Bruce glances at the digital readout and sucks in a breath. "One hundred," he says, quietly. Tony sighs, shutting his eyes and backing away from the tank.

"Let's just go," he says. "I mean, I'm dying anyway, but I'd rather it not be today, if it's all the same to you." He rips his mask away from his face and storms out of the lab, Bruce following and locking the door from the inside. He sets up a sign outside marked 'carbon monoxide present in tank no. three, please proceed with caution', then follows Tony down the hall and out onto the lawn.

They sit on the stairs of the building in silence for a while, Tony's head in his hands, Bruce quietly writing in the little notebook he and Tony have dedicated to the experiments: _'failure of test four, dated January 20, 2014; cause of failure: too high of a dosage of carbon monoxide in laboratory'. _When he looks up, Tony is staring into the distance, following the cars with his eyes.

"Pretty soon I guess I'll have to tell Dad," he mutters. "Imagine how he'll react to that, huh? 'Hey, Dad, so I'm dying.' 'Well, son, you should've taken better care of yourself.'"

"Tony—"

"That was the fourth fucking experiment, Bruce. Four trials, four failures. What else are we supposed to do, throw all four elements in at once and hope to god we don't blow up the lab?" He curls his fingers against his knee. "I start dialysis in a little over a week, if I don't get this fixed before then. And then I die." He presses his other hand against his chest. "I die, and I don't even get to save Loki."

Bruce draws in a deep breath. "I think he'll understand, Tony."

"No." Tony turns, suddenly fierce, dark eyes blazing. His hand, the one that has stitches in it now, is trembling, but Bruce pretends he doesn't notice. "No, I don't want Loki to have to understand something like this. He shouldn't have to go through losing me twice. I'm going to find a cure, and we're going to be together. Like it should be." He hesitates, then laughs quickly, staring down at his feet.

"Don't tell anyone I said that, though, okay? Don't want people to think I've gone sentimental."

"Of course not," Bruce murmurs.

/

Thor's pacing around his apartment, mug of coffee in one hand, phone in the other. Jane's staring at him from their couch, her thumb hovering over the 'pause' button on the remote.

"Thor," she says, softly. "He isn't going to answer his phone, you know."

He doesn't answer, just sets the coffee down on the kitchen counter and runs his fingers through his hair. After a few seconds, he dials a number, but it isn't Loki's. The phone rings five times before anyone picks up.

"Hello?" Odin says, sounding like he just woke up. "Who is this?"

Thor hesitates. "It's Thor, Father. I'm calling in regards to—"

"Thor!" Odin bellows, and Thor has to hold the phone three inches away from his ear. "I haven't heard from you in quite some time; how are you? How is Jane?"

"Fine," Thor says quickly. "Listen, Father, I'm—"

"Are you passing all your classes?" Odin interrupts again. "Your mother has recently expressed a wish to know your grades. Do you have access to them?"

"I—"

"Even if you don't, I'm sure you're still making A's in all your classes, yes?"

"Father," Thor says, kind of loudly, and for once Odin is quiet. "I'm calling about a specific subject. _Listen _to me, please."

"Don't shout at me," Odin says, and Thor can practically see him rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What is it?"

"It's about Loki."

Odin makes a kind of disparaging sound in the back of his throat. "Has he gotten himself in trouble, Thor? Or has that Stark boy—"

"He's been kidnapped," Thor snaps. "By Thanos."

There's a long pause, and Thor thinks Odin didn't hear him. He waits, drumming his fingers against the tabletop, and finally Odin says:

"How is that possible?"

"It's quite simple, really; Thanos took Loki away, he's got him in hiding now, and he's not going to let him go."

"Don't sass me," Odin snarls, though he sounds more upset than truly irritated. "How long ago did this happen?"

"Nearly four days," Thor says. "I just thought I would inform you. Please… don't tell Mother unless it becomes necessary." He doesn't have to explain what he means; both of them understand.

Odin sighs heavily. "I will have to call Laufey," he says, "and Farbauti, and tell them this."

Thor is surprised, because Odin hasn't spoken to Loki's birth parents since Loki was about three years old, but he doesn't say anything, just quietly slips his thumb over the phone's screen, ending the call. He turns to the sofa, where Jane is still waiting for him.

"They'll find Loki," she says, and he cannot allow anyone—not her, not even himself, not really—know how very much he doubts her words.

And in the great house of Odin, in the secretive dark corner of the basement, Odin makes the call he never thought he'd have to make again. Laufey answers, sounding the same: ragged, worn-out, voice hoarse from too many years of smoking. Odin wastes no time in telling him the nature of his call, and Laufey makes a sound like someone pricked him with a needle.

"I will tell Farbauti when she comes home from work," he says, "and we'll come up together."

Odin says, "It's nice to see you finally taking an interest in your son."

"We weren't the cause of his getting kidnapped," is what Laufey says, after a moment of silence.

"I know," Odin says. "But neither was I." And he hangs up, and wonders how long he'll be able to keep this from Frigga.

/

As far as Loki's concerned, nothing's going to change.

He stares at Thanos, leaning against one of the kitchen walls, watching _Supernatural _and eating an apple; at Amora, texting on her phone, occasionally rubbing at her nose with her long shirtsleeve. Everything's sort of come to a standstill in their lives; Loki's stopped wondering when Thanos is going to give him his phone back, stopped wondering when Tony's going to come driving up, demanding him back. Part of him still wants to run, but he has no idea where his car is—for all he knows, Justin could've taken his passport and crossed the border, left it somewhere in a frozen forest in Ontario or Quebec. And he's pretty sure he couldn't make it as far as the Interstate without Thanos catching him first, and killing him.

Mostly Loki just stays curled up in a corner of the room all day, reading the newspaper and sleeping and ignoring the food Thanos offers him. His stomach is tight with hunger, but he doesn't care; starving to death would be better than this. Fuck, _anything _would be better than this.

Thanos hasn't tried to rape Loki, not yet, but he knows it's coming, he can see it in his eyes, in the way he sometimes hovers over Loki a little too long when he's trying to get him to take a plate of whatever he's offering him. In the four days—really three, and sixteen hours, and twenty-five minutes—since he was taken, Loki's noticed that Thanos' behaviors have changed slightly in the two years since they were together. He's gentler with Amora; he still yells at her a lot, but she yells right back, and anyway he seems to need her. Loki watches them sometimes, the way they curl up together on their mattress, and thinks he sees a familiarity between them that was never there when he was with him.

Loki notices Thanos is usually in a good mood when he takes his medication—the sleeping agent he used to drug Loki that first night. But he's only taken his medicine twice since Loki's been there, and the rest of the time he's unpredictable, volatile; more so than before. (Loki actually suggested, once, that there might be some connection between Thanos' mood swings and the medication, and Thanos hit him so hard he fell into the kitchen sink and got knocked out.)

He knows he needs to leave. But it snows every night, and there's food here, and Loki doesn't want to risk getting lost on the way back to Manhattan.

(A small part of him can see the dependence he's beginning to develop on Thanos, but mostly he ignores it.)

On this particular afternoon, Amora has gone out, leaving Thanos and Loki by themselves in the shack. They are sitting side-by-side on the sofa, watching _The Big Bang Theory_. Thanos holds a bowl of Doritos on his lap, but Loki refuses to take any.

During a commercial for Pantene hair products, Thanos mutes the television and turns to Loki, setting the bowl aside. "Lo'," he says. "I want you to know how _honored _I feel, having you here. Having you stay with us."

Like it was Loki's choice. But he stays silent, eyes on the bright screen, and Thanos presses on:

"Thank you for never making a fuss. Thank you for never trying to get your phone back. You've made life so much easier for yourself, for me."

Loki doesn't mention how he's tried to get his phone out of Thanos' jeans at night, after everything's quieted down, but Amora always stirs when she hears the denim rustling.

Thanos sets the remote aside as well, and shifts himself closer to Loki. He slings an arm across the back of his shoulders, and Loki barely represses a shudder. He moves, and Thanos moves as well, until he has him backed against the arm of the sofa. Thanos' free hand drifts onto Loki's leg, and he rubs his thumb against his inner thigh.

"How'd you like a reward for being so cooperative?" Thanos' voice is soft, hoarse, close to Loki's ear.

"No," Loki says, and tries to get up, but Thanos encircles his wrist with his fingers, and Loki, shaking from lack of food, not as strong as usual, is forced to sit down again.

"It'll be good," he murmurs. "Like old times." But his lips have barely brushed Loki's cheek when there's a knock at the door. It's loud and insistent and Thanos lets out a groan, jerking away from Loki and going to the door. It's Justin Hammer, beaming, carrying a pizza box under one arm. Thanos lets him in, frowning slightly.

"I didn't tell you to bring food," he says. "Amora went out to get us all dinner."

"I brought this shit for celebration," Justin says, setting the pizza on the coffee table. "Turn off the TV, Skurge; I got some big news for Loki."

Thanos raises his eyebrows; remembers the text about Tony, and half smiles. He turns off the television and grabs a handful of Doritos, shoving them in his mouth, crumbs flying everywhere.

Loki stands up. "What?" he asks. He towers nearly half a foot over Justin, and with his arms folded across his chest, he looks formidable. But Justin doesn't flinch, just smirks, holding out his phone.

"Look at the pictures," he says, pressing the button to turn it on. Loki taps the camera icon, and a strangely familiar shot comes up. It takes him a moment to realize it's his bathroom, he and Tony's, back at the apartment.

"So you broke into the house," he says. "Fantastic, and I suppose you've come here to brag about it?"

"No, no, no, Tony let me in. Anyway, that's not the _point_; you're supposed to _look_ at the pictures. Really look at them."

_Why the fuck would Tony let him in? _Loki thinks, but he looks at the pictures anyway, all five of them. They're shots of the interior of the bathroom cabinet, and it takes Loki three tries before he realizes what he's looking at: a syringe and needle, like what diabetics use, or like something to measure out blood if someone were donating. He glances at the pictures, then at Thanos, then at Justin.

"What does this mean?" he asks.

"You're smart," Justin says, taking out a slice of pizza and biting into it, strands of cheese dangling from his lips. "You figure it out."

And then Loki thinks of Tony's electromagnet, of the way he grips at his chest, sometimes; of the electroshocks he receives so often. He looks at the pictures again, and something constricts his windpipe, making it hard to breathe.

"Anthony is dying," he whispers. "There is no other explanation. He must be using this for his electromagnet and therefore—" Suddenly something shifts in his expression, and his eyes harden. "He would have told me of this," he says. "Why didn't he _tell _me?"

Justin shrugs. Thanos is smiling, with all his teeth.

"Well," he says. "That explains why your precious Tony Stark hasn't been around to save you yet."

**A/N: I should note here that anything relating to the electromagnet, I am making up based on stuff I read on Wikipedia, so if I make any scientific errors, let me know and I'll try to fix them so they make more sense. **


	12. To Thine Own Self Be True

**A/N: Warning for (extremely) non-con elements. **

_**So Long and Sorry for all the Angst. **_

For a long time after Justin delivers his news, there is silence in the shack. Loki stands motionless before the television, staring at its dark screen, his lips parted slightly. Thanos and Justin eat slices of pizza and discuss various things—what Thanos wants Justin to do next, mostly, not as if he seems to mind being treated like a slave.

Finally, Loki repeats, softly, mostly to himself, "Why didn't he _tell _me he's dying?"

"Probably wanted to avoid hurting you," Justin grunts around a mouthful of pizza, trying to sound helpful but really mostly just further causing the irritation to grow in Loki's chest. Every muscle in his body is tensing up and, slowly, he folds his arms across his chest.

"He knows I would do anything to help him," he says. "Tony _must _know that."

"You know he's always been kind of 'let me do this shit by myself'," Thanos says, and Loki glares at him.

"You stay out of this," he snaps.

Thanos' eyebrows rise up on his forehead, and Justin swallows his last bite of pizza and mutters, "Okay, are you guys going to argue or something now, because I don't want to be around for that."

"Please, Lo', don't start. I didn't know about this until Justin told you. Don't take it out on me, okay?"

Loki steps forward. He's _furious; _at Thanos, at Justin, at Tony—mostly at Tony, because why the fuck would you keep your imminent death from a man who you claimed you were in love with—and it's making him careless with how cautious he normally is around his ex. He has a good half inch on Thanos, something he usually doesn't remember, and he looks down the bridge of his nose, eyes sharp and bright. "You do not know him," is what he says. "Tony's always been one to do things on his own, but not something like this. Not without me."

"You never know," says Thanos, setting down his slice of pizza, his eyes narrowing. _Get away from me, _he says with his body language, but Loki ignores him.

"Perhaps if you hadn't taken me away from him for your own sick, twisted purposes—"

"I took you to get you away from him," Thanos says, effectively turning the conversation away from Tony. "Two years ago, all that went down between the three of us—you had the wrong idea when it came to who was good for you and who wasn't."

Loki does step back, then, his body shivering once, uncontrollably. "I believe I made the right choice, Th—Skurge. I—"

"The right choice," Thanos repeats, smirking. "So _right _for you he can't even tell you when he's dying."

Justin sucks in a breath. "Guys, let's not," he says, but both Thanos and Loki ignore him.

"Tony _would _have told me if you hadn't come along and ruined everything. I am certain of that, Skurge."

Thanos shrugs. "You can't be sure," he says, and then, to Justin:

"Next time you go see him, you casually ask him how his electromagnet's doing—see what he says, if he tells you anything about the injector."

Anger flashes through Loki's body, white-hot and powerful. It's quickly replaced by fear—an emotion Loki will not admit to unless pressed, but _dammit, _he's terrified for Tony now, completely terrified for him, because what if he dies, and Loki's stuck here, helpless, unable to do anything but hear about the funeral via this scrawny sophomore in glasses whom they hardly know. Suddenly he's shoving Justin out of the way, running to the door. Thanos is on him in a second, grabbing his wrist and forcing him to the ground, shoving his knee into the small of his back.

"Let me go," Loki hisses. "This is not just anyone, this is _Tony_, and he's _dying_, Thanos—" It slips out accidentally, and Thanos hits him across the back of his neck, just hard enough to hurt. Justin is watching, his eyebrows raised; he starts to speak, but Thanos cuts him off:

"You do as you're told, Hammer, and no more, you remember that?"

He has to turn to Justin in order to say this, dead eyes blazing metaphorical holes into the ceiling just above Justin's head, and Loki takes his distraction as an opportunity to get free. He pulls himself out from under Thanos' knee and nearly falls over himself trying to get to the door. He wrenches it open and is out before Thanos can get to his gun, slamming it shut, listening to it shake on its rusted hinges as he dashes across the snow-ridden yard. He knows it'll be a while before he gets to a civilized road, but he doesn't care. He's _out, _and all that matters now is that he get back to Manhattan, long journey be damned.

The fact that he's furious at Tony for hiding something like this from him, that'll have to wait until later.

He can see headlights cutting through the darkness of the night, and knows it's Amora, because he can hear the rattle of her car engine and sees the lights flickering between on and off. He cuts back across the yard and into the woods adjacent to the cabin—he has no idea why Thanos hasn't come out yet, but he's not going to stop and contemplate that. Loki's feet crunch in the snow; the cold air blows against his cheeks, rubbing them red and raw.

In the woods, it's darker, less penetrable by light. He stays close to the fringe of trees at the edge, knowing that if he goes in too deep he'll never get out. (Plus he's watched _The Blair Witch Project _one too many times and there's no way in hell he's staying overnight in these trees.) He keeps running for a while, but he's never been as athletic as Thor and it's not long before his calves are cramping, needing a break. He slows to a walk, touching each tree as he passes it, his breath coming out fast and hard. He puts his free hand over his stomach, feeling it cramp with hunger. His mind fills with images of food—hamburgers, the kind he and Tony get at that ridiculously expensive restaurant down the street from Berkeley; steak, rare, blood still running into the plate; chicken parmesan with cold pasta on the side, grilled tomatoes dripping seeds and juice over the meat—and he swallows hard, mouth watering.

"Fucking Christ," Loki says to himself, "that's going to be good."

"Yes it is," says a voice behind him, and his entire body jerks reflexively, so that he nearly trips on a tree branch half-hidden in the snow. Slowly he turns and finds himself facing Thanos, alone, a knife in his right hand, glittering in the moonlight. The gun, if he has it, is nowhere to be seen.

"Didn't think I'd catch up with you," Thanos says, his breath coming quick, stepping forward. "You're fast, Lo'. I'm impressed."

"Am I expected to thank you for this?" Loki asks, backing up. His heart rate is picking up again, and he wonders how many steps it would take to get into the open again, how far from the shack they are; if Justin would change his loyalties should Loki begin screaming for help.

And then Thanos is on him, suddenly, with that catlike speed that always terrified Loki, the knife pressed against the side of his neck like on that first night. He slams him against a tree trunk, grips his shirt collar with his free hand. "You shouldn't have run," he says, softly.

"Tony is dying," Loki says, swallowing down a sudden rush of nausea. "You cannot expect me to stay in the shack any longer. We've had our fun, but—"

"No," Thanos murmurs, his voice dangerously low. "Not yet, we haven't." He thrusts his hips up against Loki's, the tightness in his jeans rubbing on Loki's crotch, and Loki lets out a sudden, sharp gasp. He lifts a hand to hit Thanos, maybe get him out of the way for a second, but Thanos is there first, digging the knife into his skin. A prick, and then a small bead of blood begins to trickle down, creating a crimson river against Loki's pale skin.

"Let me go," Loki says, his voice shaking. "Please, Thanos."

In response, Thanos spins his body around, so that Loki is now pressed stomach-first against the tree. He can feel Thanos' hips against his ass, his fingers digging into his hipbones. The knife is still pressed firmly against his neck.

"Take off your jeans," Thanos says. "I'm gonna finish what I never got to start earlier."

"Don't," Loki breathes, but really all he's thinking is, _why did it take him this long to get to this? _The knife digs into his skin again, and he moves his hand around to his front, unsnapping the button on his jeans and pulling them down slowly, because the cold has made them stiffen and stick to his skin.

"I love when you beg," Thanos murmurs, and Loki can feel him shifting behind him, the knife briefly leaving his neck as Thanos works his own jeans off.

"We couldn't have done this inside?" Loki asks, and is proud that his voice doesn't catch despite the tears that have begun welling up in his eyes. "It's warmer—"

The knife comes back, along with a fresh expanse of bare skin pressed against the backs of Loki's thighs. "Don't be fucking stupid. Amora and Justin are there." Thanos' lips graze Loki's neck, and he pushes up with his hips, then frowns. "Take off your underwear, would you?"

Loki takes them off. In a very small voice, he says:

"Just let me go back home, Thanos—" but now they're both naked from the waist down, and Thanos clamps his hand around Loki's mouth, digging the knife into the hollow of his neck.

"Shut _up_," he snarls, and then he thrusts in, fast and hard and unwelcome. There is no preparation, no lube, nothing, just the cold and the pain and the blood, and Loki grips the tree trunk so hard he rips a nail open. He screams against Thanos' palm, his eyes falling shut of their own accord, and Thanos laughs, fast and cruel, picking up speed until he's reached an almost frenzied pace.

"I've missed this," he says between every thrust, like what they're doing is _normal, _and Loki is sobbing openly now, the wind ripping the sounds from his throat. Thanos comes, digging his nails into Loki's hips, then pulls out and spins him around again, holding the knife up, its tip tinted with blood.

"Maybe that'll teach you not to run off, you little shit," he snarls, before rearing back and smacking Loki across the face. The crack of skin-on-skin echoes through the woods, and Loki winces, but doesn't retaliate.

"Tony _certainly _isn't going to want you back now," Thanos continues, hitting Loki again, from the other side this time, and Loki can feel bruises already coming up. He leans forward and grips Loki's cock in his hand, grips it hard and fucking _pulls _at it, and when Loki cries out he hits him again, this time allowing the knife to graze his collarbone.

"Say you're mine." Thanos' eyes are dark in the night, his voice an animal snarl. "Say it, Loki."

"I'm yours," Loki sobs.

"And you will always be mine."

"A-and I will always be yours."

"Even this two-year separation has not been able to make you forget me, has it?"

"N-no…"

"No… _what?_"

Loki sucks in a breath. He loathes himself for letting this happen, _again_, for not running faster or farther or deeper into the woods. "No, Thanos," he says quietly, obligatorily, and Thanos smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes.

"Good," he murmurs, and then he's reaching down and pulling his jeans back up. "Go on, get dressed, Lo'. You look _terrible, _by the way."

_No shit, _Loki thinks, but he doesn't say it; he doesn't want to get hit a fourth time. When he's dressed, Thanos slides the knife into his back pocket and slings an arm across his shoulders, turning him so that he's facing in the direction of the shack. He starts walking, forcing Loki to go along with him—Loki, who is sore and exhausted and starving and utterly _spent, _just completely _finished. _He couldn't run now even if he wanted to.

"Wanna know how I got the tape in your car?" Thanos asks as they walk.

Loki grunts.

"You left your windows cracked pretty wide. I don't know _why_ you did that, but unfortunately for you Amora has flexible arms and is a really skilled lock picker, so she was able to reach in and, after she'd unlocked your doors manually, she used her skeleton key to start the car's ignition."

"Can't," Loki mutters, stumbling. Thanos jerks him along.

"Amora can," he says, a touch of pride in his voice. "Anyway, once she did that it was pretty easy to take out your cassette and replace it with my own—I can't believe we were able to do it all before you got back." He laughs a little, rubbing Loki's arm like he's describing something the two of them did together, something innocent and fun, not all dark and twisted and sick like this.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, "Why _did _you leave your windows cracked, by the way?"

_Chinese takeout, _Loki remembers vaguely. _Didn't want the car to smell… ventilation… _Suddenly he's sick, all over the ground. Thanos jumps back, looking disgusted. Loki sinks to his knees, choking, his body shaking uncontrollably. He coughs up mostly bile, then looks up, cheeks flushed, heart thudding in his chest.

"Are you _done_?" Thanos snarls, like Loki's just taken a shit on his front lawn. Loki nods, and Thanos drags him to his feet by his shoulder, hauling him along. They reach the shack a few minutes later and go in. Justin and Amora are sitting on the sofa together, watching a grainy rerun of _Bewitched_ and eating the pizza and the food Amora brought—pre-cooked chicken and instant rice. When Loki and Thanos walk in, Amora screams and Justin jumps to his feet.

"_Shit,_" he says, too loudly, adjusting his glasses on his nose. "What the hell—"

"Don't ask questions," Thanos interrupts, but it's obvious from the way Justin is staring at them that he's sort of working through what (maybe could have probably) happened. He backs away, towards the door, his pizza forgotten on the coffee table.

"I'm gonna… go…" he says hesitantly.

"We'll need to move him to the Super 8 down the Interstate," Thanos says to Amora, ignoring Justin entirely.

Amora's eyes drop up and down Loki's bruised, bloodied body. "Okay," she says, and then, softly, "Skurge, what the fuck _happened _out there?"

"Just a little misunderstanding, that's all." Thanos squeezes Loki's shoulder, and Loki grimaces. "Right, Lo'?"

The front door swings open, then slams shut, but none of them notice. Loki is trembling so badly he can't stand up straight. The last thing he sees before darkness swells up and overcomes him is Amora heading into the kitchen, calling, "He needs some water, I suppose?"


	13. No Salvation for Me Now

They drug Loki while he's passed out, giving him more Temazepam before packing a few of their things and heading out to the car. Loki they put in the back, wrapped up in a blanket with only his hair sticking out, falling softly over the sides of the seat. Amora sits next to Thanos in the front, her hand on his thigh, eyes fixed on the road. Neither of them say much—Thanos isn't going to tell Amora what's going on, and she's not going to ask questions.

When they arrive at the Super 8, Amora parks the car off to the side while Thanos goes in the lobby and gets himself a room key. The pimple-faced girl behind the counter snaps her gum at him in a sort of defiant way and he leans against the polished chrome of the desk and says:

"Bet you get all the guys at your high school snapping your gum like that."

She snorts, mumbles something behind a fringe of dyed-black hair, and hands him his key. He briefly considers pulling his gun out and shooting her dead, or at least threatening her into giving he and Amora and Loki a free room, but decides against it. They won't be there for long.

Outside, Amora is waiting with her fingers drumming against the sideboard of the car, her eyes flicking to the backseat every so often. "He's moved," she says when Thanos arrives. "Twice now."

He shrugs and hands her his room key. "Go in this room," he says. "It's on the first floor—"

"Yeah, I know, it starts with a 'one', so that's obvious—"

Thanos raises his eyebrow, and she breathes out a sigh. "Well, all right," she snaps, "so then what?"

"Go in the room and open the window," he says. "We're gonna put Loki in that way."

Her eyes flick to Loki's still form once more, then she gets out of the car and heads into the motel. A few minutes later, one of the windows opens and she sticks her head out.

"Skurge," she shouts, and he winces at how loud she is. "I'm ready."

He nods, opening the back door and grabbing Loki around his legs. He stirs a little and makes a low noise at the back of his throat, then falls silent. Thanos shifts his grasp tighter around Loki and manages to haul him out of the car with little effort—Loki's lost more weight from not eating than Thanos realized originally. His head falls listlessly against Thanos' shoulder as he carries him, still wrapped up in the blanket, to the window. He slides him in, then climbs in himself, taking him to one of the beds before going back to the car to get the rest of their things and locking the doors and windows.

Once they are all in the room together, Thanos goes in the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face. "Well," he says, staring at his ragged expression in the mirror, at the darkened spaces beneath his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. "This is nice."

/

Justin speed-drives the entire way back to Tony and Loki's apartment, drives the whole way through the night and arrives at ten the next morning, about four hours after Thanos and Amora and Loki arrived at the Super 8. He tries the door handle and, finding it unlocked, twists it and bursts into the room.

Tony and Bruce are sitting together on the sofa. Bruce has a chemistry textbook balanced open on one knee; Tony is staring intently at some dangerous-looking chemical mixture in a test tube on the coffee table. He jumps when the door opens and looks up, squinting through the slightly foggy goggles before snarling:

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking, Hammer?"

Bruce snorts, running his finger over a line of text. "Try the formic acid," he suggests, and Tony grabs a bottle and begins sliding its contents slowly through a tube, never taking his eyes off Justin.

"Excuse my intrusion," Justin snaps, irritated. "I just thought you should know that I can now tell you with definitive certainty _exactly _where Loki is."

Tony stops mid-pour. "Where is he?"

"The Super 8," Justin says. "Off the freeway, you know? Right near that mall complex with the Wal-Mart and the Rave Theater."

Tony's on his feet in five seconds flat, thrusting the tube into Bruce's hands. "Don't let the gas escape, or you're gonna have fucking carbon monoxide poisoning in about thirty seconds, and I'm not letting this attempt go to shit." He goes to the door, grabbing his leather jacket off the coat rack and throwing it over his shoulders. "Thanks, Justin. I'm calling Thor, we're gonna go get Loki, thanks."

"Do you want me to come?" Justin asks.

"No," Tony grunts, taking his keys and heading out the door at a breakneck pace. "Sorry, but not even this is gonna guarantee you a date with me, Hammer."

"Never said I wanted one," Justin mumbles sullenly, but Tony's already in his car and on his phone and doesn't hear him at all.

"He's like a hurricane, isn't he?" Bruce comments mildly from his position on the sofa where he's still calmly _creating carbon monoxide in the house_, and Justin makes a sort of exasperated sound at the back of his throat, slamming the door shut behind him and heading for his own car. Once he's inside, he takes his cell phone out of his back pocket and dials Thanos' number. The man picks up on the fifth ring, sounding tired.

"Whatever it is, it'd better be something real fucking important," he says, "because Loki just woke up and I don't want him fully functional and breaking the door down."

Justin sucks in a breath, knowing how much the next few words he says are going to cost him, but not really caring enough to stop himself. "I told Tony," he says, and Thanos is quiet for an unnaturally long period of time before replying:

"You told Tony… _what?_"

"Told him where you guys are, where Loki is," Justin mumbles.

"Oh I am going to _kill _you, you fucking useless piece of shit!" Thanos roars into his ear. The line disconnects, and Justin lets out a groan. He should've known that ratting out Thanos and Amora would be a bad idea, but _fuck. _Loki looked for all the world like he'd been _raped _last night, and they were the only two people out there.

Even Justin knows when to draw the line in these situations.

But he highly doubts he'll be a part of Thanos' "secret plan" anymore, and that's bad, because there isn't any way for him to relay information to Tony without knowing what's going on with Thanos first, and the whole reason Justin's even in on this in the first place, really, is because he wants to get into Tony's trust circle.

(Also there's something to be said for Thanos, and how magnetically charismatic he is, but he's a scary fucking guy.)

Justin sighs softly and cranks his ignition, driving away from the apartment complex, blasting the Top 40 Hits station the whole way back to his dorm.

/

Tony's on the phone with Thor before he even gets to the end of the apartment complex driveway, talking at a rapid fire pace into the mouthpiece, explaining that he's coming to pick Thor up in about ten seconds so he'd better be ready because they are going to get Loki and then they are going to fuck Thanos' shit up. Badly.

"I will be ready when you arrive, Anthony," Thor says, sounding like a sentinel, and then they hang up and Tony is driving across the campus at a breakneck speed, pulling up to Thor and Jane's apartment and honking the horn twice. Some older woman Tony doesn't know sticks her head out of the window of a neighboring apartment and calls, "Please, young man!" and Tony flips her off through the passenger window as Thor comes boiling out of his front door, hopping in a very undignified manner in one shoe, carrying the other by the shoelaces in his hand. He gets into the car and he and Tony drive off, heading for the Interstate, dark looks in their eyes.

Neither says anything, but both are thinking of murder.

/

Thanos shoves one of his shirts into the only bag they brought with them—a tattered old duffel. "Move it, Amora," he spits, and Amora, who is tying Loki's wrists together with thick wire, pauses mid-action and glares at him.

"Shut the fuck up," she says. "I'm going as fast as I can."

"What the _hell _is going on?" Loki asks for what feels to him like the millionth time. All he knows—literally all he knows, because the Temazepam makes him delirious and slow for about an hour and a half after he wakes up and he pretty much woke up to Thanos screaming into his phone about how he was going to kill someone—is that they are leaving the hotel room (which he has no idea how he got there and would really love for someone to tell him, even though he knows no one is going to), but he has no idea where they're going after.

His entire body is still sore from last night, and he kind of wants to throw up in Amora's face and shoot Thanos with his own gun.

"It's none of your business!" Thanos yells, shoving his phone into his back pocket and ripping a sheet of paper off the pad on the table between the beds in the room. He scrawls something across it with his pen, folds it up, and makes a 'let's go' motion at the door with his hand.

"Yes, Your Highness," Amora mutters under her breath, grabbing Loki by the arm and hauling him to his feet.

"It would be easier if you didn't tie me up so I could walk with my own two feet—" he starts, and Thanos slams his hand into the back of Loki's head hard enough to hurt.

"It would be easier if you were _dead,_" he growls, "but we aren't killing you, so shut the fuck up and walk."

They leave the room and head down the hallway, stopping in the lobby so that Thanos can return his room key. He drops it on the desk and the clerk glances up, startled. She's different from the one when they first arrived, less insolent, and Thanos thinks if they weren't in a public place, oh _god, _he'd take advantage of that.

"Checking out?"

"Obviously," Thanos mutters, sliding his credit card across to her as well and tapping his fingers against his arm, glancing impatiently at the door.

"They can't get here _that _fast, Skurge, calm down," Amora says, and Loki frowns.

"Who?" he says. "Who can't get here? What the hell is she talking about?"

Thanos ignores both of them, narrowing his eyes at the desk clerk as she scans his card and hands it back to him. "Thank you for staying at the Super 8," she says, sounding bored.

He nods once, curtly, then hands her the piece of folded paper from in the room. "In about three hours, a guy is going to come here, name of Tony Stark. Give this to him, make sure he reads it."

"Who shall I say it's from?" the desk clerk asks.

Thanos pauses, glancing at Loki, then at Amora. "Death Shirts," he says, finally, a small twisted smirk curling up the corner of his lip. "Say it's from Death Shirts. He'll know."

Loki is staring at him as the three of them leave the motel and head for their car.

"Tony's coming?" he says, incredulously. "Tony knows I'm here?"

Thanos hits him again, across the mouth this time, and Loki feels his upper lip cut into his teeth.

"Just shut up," Thanos says, tiredly, climbing into the drivers' seat and putting the key in the ignition. Loki's barely closed the back door when Thanos peels out of the driveway and onto the road leading to the Interstate. They do a U-Turn, heading back north, in the direction of the shack.

Loki presses his forehead against the cold glass of the window, staring at the low, gray sky, heavy with unshed snow. He runs a finger absently over one of the longer cuts Thanos left on him, wincing a little at the pain. Everything feels dulled, like Loki's watching his life happen to him, rather than living it himself. He knows he should be upset about the rape, upset about Tony, upset about all of this shit, but he can't bring himself to be. Vaguely it occurs to him to wonder if they've drugged him again, but he can't even bring himself to care about that.

He doesn't remember to ask how they got to the Super 8 in the first place, just lets his head nod against the glass until he falls into a state of semi-conscious sleep, unaware of his surroundings.

/

By the time Tony and Thor arrive at the Super 8, it's well past noon, and Thanos, Amora, and Loki are long gone. Tony slams his fist against the counter and yells, "Goddammit!" at the wall, causing the desk clerk to flinch, her red hair falling into one eye.

"I'm sorry?" she says, making it sound like a question, then reaches under the desk and pulls out a slip of paper. "He asked me to give you this, before he left."

Tony opens it, nearly tearing the paper in his haste, and has to read the words five times before they register fully on his brain.

_The rules have changed, Anthony. All men want something in exchange for losing their prize, and I want money. Give me $10,000, and you can have Loki back. –Thanos_

_P.S. – you should know that around my friends, now, I go by Skurge._

"How in the ever-living fuck am I going to get my dad to give me ten thousand dollars?" Tony asks, angrily, crumpling the paper and throwing it in a trash can.

"I will kill him for ransoming my brother like a prized bull," Thor growls, and Tony, looking at the thunderous expression in his eyes, gets the feeling that he means it.


	14. One Day Closer to Death

In his dream, Loki has returned to he and Tony's apartment, and they are in the kitchen together, fixing dinner and trying to talk about what happened to Loki without arguing—a feat that is proving, even in the dream, to be impossible. '_Why the fuck didn't you tell me about Thanos?' _dream-Tony snarls, and dream-Loki replies, with equal venom, _'Same reason you didn't tell me you were dying.' _They kiss, roughly, brokenly, Loki's long fingers sliding down Tony's cheek, and he cries in the dream, tears spilling out of his emerald eyes, dripping down onto his collarbone. There is so much _anger _in Tony's touch, but also regret, and Loki pushes him against the wall, pinning his wrists back against the wooden panels, biting his neck.

He wakes covered in sweat, the edge of the blanket he's wrapped in stained with tears, body shaking slightly. It's darker outside than it was when he passed out, and they're stopped somewhere off the road, he has no idea where. The overhead light in the car is on, and Amora and Thanos are talking quietly in the front, looking at a map, a half-crushed can of Coke in Thanos' hand.

"It would be easier to just go to Vermont or New Hampshire," Amora is saying, frowning at the map. "Come on, Skurge, this isn't _necessary_—"

"Justin told Tony about the Super 8," Thanos interrupts, in a tone of voice which suggests he's already said this several times. "He could've told him about the shack, too. If we go up to Toronto, the police will have a harder time of finding us."

"That's bullshit," Amora says automatically, though there's a shred of doubt lingering in her voice. "Anyway, who says Tony will go to the police right away? He's not the type—"

"You don't know him _at all_," Thanos interjects, waving a hand and nearly spilling his Coke. "You've never even _met _him, Amora, so you can't say what _type _he'd be to do anything. He'll go to the police, or he'll get Loki's brother Thor to, and we need to be out of the country before all that starts."

And Loki's in the back, thinking, _no, Amora's right, he wouldn't go to the police, _because honestly? Tony's not the type to ask for help, never has been, and somewhere in the back of Loki's mind he thinks maybe _that's_ the reason why he didn't tell him about the iron poisoning, but he doesn't really want to think about that right now, so he doesn't allow himself to, focusing instead on Amora and Thanos' words.

Amora draws in a breath and exhales it in a long, shaky sigh. Then, as both Thanos and Loki knew she would, she acquiesces, "Yeah, Skurge. Yeah, let's go to Canada."

Thanos does that thing where he smiles like a feral animal, setting his drink aside and grabbing her by the back of her neck and kissing her long and hard and drawn-out to a point where Loki actually feels physically ill, watching them. "Thank you," he says. "Can you make Lo' a fake passport?"

"Well, no shit," Amora grumbles, ducking her face away from his and fumbling around in the glove compartment for a moment before locating a pen and some paper. "Do you need one too?"

"Nah, I have mine," Thanos says, and pulls it out of his pocket for a second. Then he grabs his Coke and finishes it off in one swallow, throat muscles jerking downward in a way that's almost graceful. He tosses the can under his seat, and Loki hears it roll against the carpet for a second before stopping.

Suddenly his mind is a whirlwind of thoughts, almost like the Temazepam was still holding onto him and has just now released his brain: why are they going to Canada, why is Thanos dragging this out like he is? There's really no reason to anymore—well, okay, there really wasn't any reason to begin with, but Loki's too much affected by Thanos to see that—he could just take him back to Manhattan now, back to Tony and Thor and Berkeley and everything else warm and safe, where Loki needs to be. Instinctively he reaches for his phone before remembering, like a slap in the face, that his phone is no longer on his person, and actually he has no idea where it is.

Forcing himself to sit up all the way, Loki clears his throat and says, "I want my phone now."

Thanos and Amora both jump about ten feet, spinning around to stare at him like they'd forgotten he was in the back of the car. Immediately Thanos has his gun out, like he thinks Loki's going to run when he still has the memory of last night imprinted so hard on his brain, and Amora's yelling something about 'don't wave that thing around Jesus freaking Christ you could kill all of us' and Loki is disentangling himself from his blanket and his hair falls around his face and his neck in wild tendrils and he can feel its greasiness, and thinks he must look like a madman right now.

Finally everything seems to calm down some, and Thanos lowers his gun, but only slightly. "I told you I'd give it to you when I'm ready."

"We're going to Canada," Loki says. "I'd like to call Tony and tell him good-bye, at least."

Thanos and Amora look at each other. "You heard that part of the conversation?" Thanos asks after a few seconds, like he wishes Loki _hadn't, _and Loki kind of shrugs and nods at the same time.

Thanos groans, running his fingers through his hair. "Well, you can't have your phone now, anyway, we're still in the States. I'll give it to you once we're in Toronto. Or wherever the hell we end up."

For almost the first time since Thanos took him, Loki feels a sudden surge of something like power rush through him. He wants to demand _no, _wants to do something drastic and completely _not him _like threaten Amora's life or pop the locks on the doors and start running or grab the map and rip it to shreds, but the gun is still in Thanos' hand, gleaming threateningly in the overhead light, and Amora's got that switchblade knife somewhere on her person, and if Thanos raped him once in the woods, who's to say he won't do it again, or even kill him this time, and Loki's not ready to risk his life over a fucking phone. So he sits back, feeling frustrated and trapped and shaky, and a look of something like triumph flashes across Thanos' face for half a second before he's turning back to the front of the car and saying:

"Hurry up with that passport, would you? We have to get over five hundred miles before we're even in Ontario."

/

Tony and Thor ride back to Manhattan in silence. Tony's gripping the wheel tight enough to make his knuckles turn white, and Thor's staring straight ahead, his expression murderous. Part of Tony wants to call Justin and chew him out for telling Thanos, but he doesn't because a.) Justin's a fucking sniveling weasel who wouldn't get what he'd done wrong and b.) it would be counterproductive. Still, he's furious as he drops Thor off at his apartment and hangs out of his window for a moment as Thor walks up to his door, calling:

"We're gonna get Loki, Big Guy, okay? Even if we have to kill for him."

Thor doesn't say anything, just goes inside and slams his door shut, and Tony thinks of how much Thor must be hurting right now, because Loki may be Tony's boyfriend, the fucking love of his life and they haven't even gotten to make up for their last argument yet and _damn _that hurts, but Loki is Thor's _brother, _in blood if not biologically, and there's a different, deeper cut for losing a sibling than there is for losing a lover.

When Tony gets back to his apartment, Bruce is still there, with all the windows cracked, staring at the tube where the formic acid is—or was. Now there's just a sort of hole in the glass, and Bruce has an expression on his face like someone just ran over his dog.

"Oh, let me guess," Tony says, dropping his things on the sofa and pulling out his phone. "This one didn't work either."

"The acid got too strong and I couldn't control it," Bruce says, twisting his mouth. "I was trying to dehydrate it like the textbook says, y'know, but—"

"It's fine," Tony interrupts, scrolling through his contacts until he comes to _Howard Stark _and tapping his father's name with his thumb. "Just note it in the log or whatever the fuck. We'll get it." He's too distracted to really be angry over this fifth—or sixth, whatever—failed attempt. "Maybe next time we'll try doing it in the lab again."

"Yeah," says Bruce, shutting the textbook and watching Tony carefully out of the corners of his eyes.

Five rings into the call, Howard picks up. "Hello?"

"Dad, hey."

"Anthony?" Howard says, surprised. "What is it?"

Tony grits his teeth, pacing around his living room because he _hates _asking his dad for anything. "I need money," he says, figuring it would be better not to beat around the bush about this.

"How much?" Howard asks after a few seconds. His tone is guarded.

"Ten thousand dollars," Tony grunts, ignoring Bruce's exclamation from the sofa where he's packing his things up.

On the phone, there's a loud clunk, and Tony thinks he's sent his father into cardiac arrest again until Howard speaks. "_How _much?" he asks, loudly.

Tony repeats the amount, feeling irritation crawling into his chest.

"Don't you have that much in your account? Why do you need this money, anyway? You aren't back into drugs, are you?"

(To be honest, it was never drugs Tony was into, it was just a combination of boredom and loneliness and some bad nicotine that had made him act the way he had his freshman year of high school, but he doesn't want to get into that right now.)

"No, it's for something serious, Dad, come on, don't go all cheap on me now. You're the head of Stark Industries."

"Well, I'm also careful with my money," Howard snaps back. "I have medical expenses to pay off and bills to file and I can't just—"

"By 'careful with your money', I'm assuming you mean you don't actually _have _the money."

Again, Howard hesitates. "I have the money," he says. "But I—I may not have paid off everything I needed to this month, Anthony. I'm sorry. I can send you five thousand, but the other half, you'll have to come up with yourself."

"What the hell didn't you pay off?" Tony snarls, suddenly more furious than he was a second ago. "Don't tell me you haven't paid the apartment bills—"

"Do not speak to me as though I am a child!" Howard roars. "It's none of your business what I have and have not paid. I'm going to transfer five thousand dollars into your checking account, and I don't want to hear any more complaining from you or I'll cancel your credit card and you'll have to make any transactions through me. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Tony spits, resentfully, digging his toes into the bottom of his shoe.

"Very good," Howard says. He's quiet for a second, and Tony's about to hang up when abruptly he speaks again:

"And how are you and Loki… doing?" It sounds like the words are being forced from him, and Tony entertains a very brief, very amusing mental image of Jarvis standing beside Howard in his kitchen, holding a gun to his head with certain phrases painted on its side for him to say.

"Fine, Dad," Tony grunts after a couple of seconds, because there's really no point in telling Howard that Loki is the reason why he needs the money, because why would Howard actually give a shit that Loki's been gone for four days now? "We're fine."

"Good," Howard says, and then, "I have to go, Anthony. We'll talk later." He hangs up before Tony can say anything else, and the younger Stark waits for a second before throwing his phone on the sofa and pulling his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"God_dammit,_" he snarls.

"What, he won't give you the money?" Bruce asks, standing up and slinging his booksack over his shoulders.

"No, he's giving me half," Tony says. "I have to take the other half out of my account. Like he expects me to have five grand just lying around in the fucking bank." But he does have the money, and he knows it, and it pains him to have to take it out because he was planning on using it to pay for his next surgery, or his dialysis, whichever came first in the order of his fucked-up electromagnet business. He looks at Bruce, and Bruce draws in a breath.

"Is it serious, what you need the money for?"

Tony nods. "It's serious."

Bruce nods, too. Then, "Will you have enough for your dialysis after you withdraw this cash?"

"Dad will. I won't," and both Bruce and Tony know that Tony's never going to tell his father about his electromagnet, not unless Yinsen says there's nothing more they can do and that Tony's going to have to fill out a will and say his good-byes in the hospital.

"Well, then," says Bruce quietly, laying a hand on Tony's shoulder, "I guess we'd better figure out how to save you soon."

"I guess you're right," Tony says, smiling bitterly, and forces himself to wait until Bruce is gone before completely breaking down, sinking to the floor and just letting the tears run like acid down his cheeks.

**A/N: So here's the deal: I'm kind of not liking this story at all. Even though I have the next three chapters after this completely planned out and even though the rest of the story is sort of sporadically planned after that, I still don't like this story. So my question is this: would you guys still be interested in reading it if I continue with it, or are you not liking it either and would prefer for me to just delete the whole thing and start on my next idea(s)? **

**I'm just curious to know what you all think. **


	15. Leave My Body

It all (sort of) starts to turn around for Tony like this:

He and Bruce are in the science lab, staring down into test tubes, noxious fumes rising up against the protective glass in front of their faces, working frantically against the clock because ever since Tony made his withdrawal from the bank yesterday he's been freaking out that at any second, he could slip under the iron poisoning again, except now he won't have enough money to bail himself out of trouble, so he kind of _needs _for these elements to combine. Bruce is dehydrating the formic acid, slower than the last time they tried this, and Tony is combining the hydrogen and nitrogen elements—which is actually not that difficult, and why didn't he remember that this is fucking _ammonia, _it would've made everything slightly easier.

Suddenly Bruce lets out an exclamation, and Tony jerks back instinctively, thinking they're either about to be poisoned or possibly explode right where they stand, but the other physicist hasn't moved. He's barely even breathing, just staring with so much intense concentration down into the tube that Tony has to look too, and then he sees it: registering on the special monitor used only in the lab, it's carbon monoxide, pure and perfect and absolutely what Tony has been dying to see—metaphorically—since for-fucking-ever ago. He laughs and Bruce laughs and the air is suddenly lighter, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off Tony's chest.

Bruce keeps the gas at a stable pressure while Tony works to finish combining the hydrogen and nitrogen, sweat beading up around his temples, dripping into his eyes. It doesn't take him long, mostly because, again, _ammonia, _and then he's transferring it, and there's a minor explosion inside the glass case, but afterwards it's all Tony can do not to cry (again, and this is more crying than he's done in ages, what the hell) because their elements have combined. Precisely. It's like a spider web that's been woven together so intricately it can't be torn apart; like that game Tony played when he was a child, with the Yo-Yo string, creating the Cat's Cradle, strings looped around each other until you couldn't tell where everything started.

They have deferoxamine in the lab, but in elemental form, trapped in a tube. Bruce seals it off while Tony shuts down his half of the case and makes a note in the log they've been keeping: _'success on test six, dated January 21, 2014; fucking __**finally**__', _and then he puts the notebook up and Bruce takes the tube out and sets it in a plastic container which he then closes and hands to Tony.

"So the carbon monoxide will act as the vasodilator," he says, "and the ammonia—"

"Is now just nitrogen and hydrogen again," Tony interrupts. He's literally _shaking _with excitement, staring at their element, at his success. He feels like he's discovered something world-changing. "We have to take this to the hospital. Yinsen'll want it in me as soon as fucking possible." Bruce nods, and they slip on their jackets and head out, bracing themselves against the cold until they get to Tony's car. Tony blasts the radio the entire way, a huge smile on his face. He makes quips about what they're going to call the element once it's in his electromagnet (Starkium, probably, although an argument can be made for Tonium even though that sounds _way _not okay) and cannot keep from looking at the container every five seconds.

He wishes Loki were here to see this.

When they arrive at the hospital, Tony is immediately admitted, mostly because the doctors and nurses are used to seeing him in a state of near-heart attack and don't right away get that this time, it's different. Bruce goes as far as he can, but is asked to stay in the waiting room while Tony goes in the ICU, where Yinsen is.

"So I'm a genius, all right," is the first thing Tony says to Yinsen when he walks in with his deferoxamine-in-a-tube, and the way Yinsen's face lights up, you'd think Tony's giving him a Christmas present. He takes the element carefully, like it's made of gold; holds it to the ceiling lights. After a few seconds he puts it, container and all, into a heavy silver machine Tony hasn't seen before, and flicks a switch on the side.

"You are going to live, Mr. Stark," Yinsen murmurs, smiling so hard his eyes are crinkling at the edges, and for maybe the first time it really _hits _Tony, what he and Bruce have just accomplished. He tries to speak, but his mouth won't form words. All he can do is move forward and hug Yinsen, gripping him, his heart pounding, making him shake some more.

After a while, Tony pulls away, wiping his eyes and sucking in a deep breath. He glances at the silver machine, which is humming softly, and he says:

"Well, I'm ready."

Yinsen nods. "Lie back," he says, gesturing at the operating table and beginning to set up his tools, his surgical wear, the sleep-inducing drugs.

Just before the chloroform begins to take effect, an image of Loki's face, all angles and lines and beauty, the way he was five days ago, slips into Tony's mind.

He goes under smiling faintly, dreaming of Loki, of the way he will react when he returns and realizes that yes, Tony is going to be okay.

/

It's so cold by the time Thanos, Amora, and Loki reach the border between the United States and Canada that Loki has to sit between his two captors, which means four thighs pressing together in the front seat, and honestly Loki can't remember anything being more awkward—except maybe that time in high school when he got caught in Odin's basement with his head between Tony's legs. They hand in their passports—the patrolman squints at Loki's for a second, and he thinks, _oh fuck, please see that it's fake, _but he doesn't, just stamps it and lets them go on.

"Wow," Thanos says, all excitement, drawing out the 'o', and Loki can feel his leg quivering. "Wow, we did it, goddamn."

Amora doesn't say anything for a moment, which is weird because she _always _has something to say when Thanos speaks, and after a few seconds he reaches around Loki and lightly pinches her arm.

"Hey," he says, "you alive over there or what?"

"Mm, yeah," she murmurs. "Just tired." And then she looks up and tries to smile at Thanos, but it doesn't quite make it to her eyes, and Loki's pretty sure he's the only one who noticed.

They get to a Best Western after driving for a while, and it's on the outskirts of Toronto. There's a billboard right in the parking lot advertising for Canada's famous landmark: _'Come see Niagara Falls, chance of a lifetime! Stand in two places at once!' _

Loki is staring up at the sign and doesn't realize Thanos has come up behind him until he's _right fucking there, _resting one hand on Loki's shoulder. "We should go there," he says, nodding up at the picture of the Falls. "The three of us. Like a family."

Loki jerks his arm out of Thanos' grasp. "We are not a family," he snarls. "And I am not going to stay with you and your whore long enough to make _casual trips_—" His sentence is abruptly cut off as Thanos hits him, hard, across the face. He does that thing with his eyes where it looks like he's being consumed by fire from the inside, and Loki shudders involuntarily.

"Don't call her a whore," Thanos says. "And you aren't the one who's dictating where you'll be, or for how long. You'll do well to remember what took place between us two nights ago."

Loki narrows his eyes but says nothing, and after a few seconds Thanos laughs shortly.

"I thought so." When he grabs Loki's arm again, there is no protest, just Loki seething inwardly and imagining how it would be if he were to shoot Thanos and Amora in cold blood once they're all settled in the room. "Now come on, let's go check in and put our stuff up." He rubs at Loki's skin with the palm of his hand. "We can check out the city in the morning."

And in spite of himself, Loki nods a little, letting Thanos walk him into the hotel, because really, they've been traveling almost nonstop since yesterday, and the sun's already gone down, and it's cold, and he's starving and exhausted, and what the hell is the _point _of even trying to get away anymore if he's already in a different country?

He only wishes he could have apologized to Tony before he left.

/

It's Thor who gets a text at four in the morning on the twenty-second of January, Thor who fumbles with his phone for a second before managing to get in his passcode, Thor who nearly falls out of bed when he sees Loki's name across the top of the screen, followed by a brief text:

'_In Toronto. Staying at a Best Western near the_ _Royal Ontario Museum. Send word.' _

He cannot call Odin and Frigga fast enough. (He would call Tony, but Tony's in the hospital—again—staying longer than usual this time for whatever reason, and in all honesty even after two years Thor still doesn't fully trust the man his brother loves.)

/

Laufey and Farbauti arrive in the afternoon of the twenty-second, walking into Odin's house like they've been coming there forever. Laufey looks incensed, his long face blood red with anger; Farbauti looks exhausted, like she's been crying for hours and only just stopped. Odin has barely gotten the words _Loki's in Toronto _out before Laufey's nearly losing it, letting out a string of curses that everyone flinches at, except Farbauti, who looks like she's sinking into a state of shock.

"You _let _him get to Canada?" Laufey roars.

"As if I'm controlling what his captors are doing!" Odin roars back, but Laufey's already on the phone, calling an unfamiliar number, ignoring Odin's loud protests that he's going to have a phone bill half a mile long if Laufey's dialing someone out-of-state. After a few seconds, Laufey holds up his hand—his middle finger is extended a slight bit more than the rest, and Thor kind of laughs behind his palm—and there's a brief, extremely tense silence in the room before Laufey barks:

"Yes, is this Officer Fandral? …No, it's Laufey, you sex-obsessed ass, now listen to me… My son, Loki, has been taken; he's in Toronto—"

"At the Best Western near the Royal Ontario Museum," Thor cuts in helpfully, and Laufey kind of glares at him for a second before repeating the information into the phone.

"I want you on the case," he says. "You and Sif both… Yes, I understand, I'm willing to pay whatever it takes… Farbauti and I just want Loki alive… Yes… Yes… Okay. Good. Thank you." He slams the phone down with so much force that the air rings around it.

"Who in the _hell _was that?" Odin snarls.

"Farbauti and I have connections in the police force from when we lived in Canada," Laufey says shortly. "They're going to find our son, bring him home, extradite his captors."

"_Our _son," Odin corrects, narrowing his eye.

Thor frowns a little, stepping back, not wanting to get involved in all of this. All he knows is that his brother is coming home soon, that he's still alive and communicating. He wishes Loki would text him again, but he never does, not that whole evening, and not for the rest of the time that he's gone.

/

They stay in Toronto for a week, in the same room at the Best Western, because as far as Thanos is concerned, no one is going to find them now that they're in Canada, now that they're not within range of anyone who knows them. The country seems to loosen him up a bit, and at times he's almost cheerful, taking them to eat breakfast at Tim Horton's, on weirdly domestic supermarket trips to Shopper's Drug Mart and Loblaws. They visit the Royal Ontario Museum, and it makes Loki feel sick to know that these people have no idea who he is, or where he's from.

On the seventh day, just as Thanos is saying something about getting their visas from back home so they can get jobs and a real house to stay in, there is a loud, insistent knock at their hotel room door, and then it's busted down and two people, a man and a woman, come running in. It takes Loki a second to realize they're police officers, but when he does he's on his feet, and so are Thanos and Amora, and everyone's yelling, and someone's drawing a gun, and Loki's not sure how but he ends up flush against the male officer while the female straps cuffs against Thanos' wrists and reads him his rights. He's shifting back, trying to get free, but she's strong, maybe stronger than Amora, and after a while he stops struggling and stands there, his hands tied, his face flushed.

"What the fuck is going on?" Thanos snarls, cutting his eyes from Loki to the officers and back. "Lo', what the hell is happening?"

"I have no idea," Loki says, biting down on his lower lip.

"Are you Loki Laufeyson?" the male officer asks, and just for a second Loki lets himself _look _at the man, with his clear blue eyes, his cornstalk-gold hair, his perfect skin. He turns up his lips in an utterly charming smile, and adds:

"That's just a perfunctory question, by the way. I know you're Laufey's son. You look just like him."

Loki raises his eyebrows. "You know Laufey?"

"He's one of my best friends." The officer holds out his hand. "I'm Fandral, by the way. I swear to god, I didn't realize how much you were gonna look like him. It's eerie, isn't it, Sif?"

But whether Sif thinks it's eerie or not is never revealed, because it's at that exact moment that Amora grabs Thanos' gun from the table between the two beds in the room and shoots her in the leg.

"_Fuck!_" Sif yells, and in the confusion that follows, Amora escapes, running out of the room with nothing but her purse and a thin jacket Thanos bought her in the Toronto Zoo gift shop. Fandral manages to hold on to Thanos while Loki rings the front desk and asks for an ambulance, and the whole time they are waiting, as Loki keeps a steady pressure on Sif's leg with a bit of the bed sheet, Thanos glares resentfully at him, like he's going to murder him with his eyes. It's creepy, but Loki's a.) used to it and b.) not really paying attention to him. His interest is more or less focused on Fandral, who keeps having to flip his hair out of his eyes and laughs every time he does it. Loki isn't sure if he's genuinely amused by himself or if he's trying to keep Loki from freaking out, but either way, it's working.

The ambulance arrives and takes Sif away, and then Fandral escorts Thanos to his police car with a grim expression on his face. "You're going back to the States, buddy," he says. "You and that little girlfriend of yours, once we find her. Which, by the way, we will, so don't think she's getting off easy."

Before the car door closes, Thanos says:

"Lo', wait, your phone," and nods his head downwards. Loki frowns slightly but takes the phone out of Thanos' back pocket, rubbing the screen on his pants leg to clear it of fingerprint smudges. Thanos smiles at him, then, and he looks, for a moment, almost sad.

"It was a good run," he says, and then the door shuts, and Loki can't see him anymore.

"We'll find the other one, the girl," Fandral is saying. "They'll both be extradited. I just wanted you to know that."

"Thanks," Loki says, uncertainly, because honestly he has no fucking clue what he's supposed to say.

Then Fandral gestures in front of him, and Loki turns and sees a tall, slightly heavyset man heading towards him. "That's Heimdall," Fandral says. "He'll escort you to the airport. You're going back home immediately, on one of Laufey's private planes."

_Laufey has private planes? _Loki thinks, incredulously, but he doesn't say anything, just nods. He's starting to shake a little, goosebumps rising up on his arms.

"Oh," says Fandral, "you must be freezing." And he takes off his coat and wraps it around Loki's shoulders, and Loki doesn't bother explaining that that's not the reason why he's trembling so badly he can hardly stand, just smiles a little. The coat smells like syrup and trees, and Loki almost wants to laugh at how utterly stereotypical that is.

"Well, I'll see you in the States, I suppose," Fandral says after a few seconds. "Sif and I will want to reunite with Laufey and Farbauti… and of course I'll be wanting to check up on you." He levels his eyes onto Loki's for a second, and Loki feels his heart jerk in his chest, feels his cheeks flooding with color.

He and Heimdall go to where the car is parked that will take him to the airport, and Loki climbs in the passenger's seat, his heart slamming a drumbeat in his chest.

(He knows Fandral and everyone else will think he's _happy _to be going home, and he wonders in the back of his mind why all he wants is for everything to stay the way it was when he went to sleep last night, listening to Thanos' slow, even breathing, muffled by Amora's thick, long hair.)

**A/N: Okay, wow, guys, thanks for the reviews. Honestly, **_**honestly, **_**you guys inspired me to write this chapter the way I did—because if you hadn't mentioned the pacing, I would've kept going the same way I was, and this story would've been over six billion chapters long. **

**That being said, this is (hopefully) the only chapter where I will skim over a long period of time the way I have, and everything should be returning to normal (hah) in the next chapter. **

**Again, thanks for encouraging me to keep going—you guys have no idea how much it means to me. I love all of you. **


	16. Moving Up to Higher Ground

The flight back to Manhattan doesn't take long. Loki spends most of it with his forehead pressed against the cold glass of one of the windows, ear buds snaking through his shirt and into his iPod, listening to the measured beats of Tool's _10,000 Days _album until they land. The tires skid a little against the wet ground of the tarmac, and Loki winces as the plane jolts, feeling his empty stomach lurch inside him. Because it's a private plane, he's able to bypass any security protocols and simply walks out via ladder, the wind whipping around him. He goes into the airport, shaking lightly, thinking of all that he's just been through, of everything yet to come. He's barely inside when Thor tackles him, or nearly, yelling and laughing and squeezing him hard enough to hurt. Loki doesn't protest, just lets Thor hold him, hesitantly wrapping his arms around his brother and hugging back and feeling Thor's smile widen as he presses his face against his shoulder.

"Loki," Thor rumbles, all emotional as usual. "Brother, I worried so."

And then Frigga's there, just _there _like Loki's wishing she'd have been for _weeks _now, and she's wrapping her arms around him and holding him against her. He can feel her body trembling with tears, and he leans into her, squeezing the folds of her dress. "Mom," he mumbles, and she strokes his hair with her fingers.

Odin stands slightly off to the side, his arms folded across his chest. When at last Loki looks up, Odin nods once at him, says:

"It is good to have you back, my son," and Loki can't help it, he goes to him and squeezes his arm once, lightly, allowing himself a half smile which Odin surprisingly returns. They head out to the car, and the whole way Thor's talking, gesturing madly with his hands, and Loki's smiling a little, watching him, and Frigga's got her arm around Loki's shoulders like she's afraid he'll disappear if she lets him go again. Loki sleeps most of the way home, his head resting against the back of the seat, and it's then that Thor first really notices how thin his brother has gotten, how deeply sunken in his eyes are. There is a bruise on his cheek, just above his upper lip, and Thor wonders how recently it was put there.

When they arrive at Odin's, Thor shakes Loki's shoulder and he startles awake, eyes flying around the interior of the car for a second before settling on the blond. A shaky smile passes over his lips and they go in, and Thor pretends he didn't notice the way Loki flinched away from him for a second before becoming fully aware of his surroundings. At the door, Frigga pauses, placing her hand on Loki's shoulder.

"Laufey and Farbauti have been staying with us for the week," she says. "They are in the living room. They wish to meet you, but if you do not feel up to it I can tell them to leave for a while—"

"No," Loki murmurs. "It's fine, I'll just get it over with now." As they walk inside, he glances down at his phone. There are no new messages for him, not from Tony, not from anyone, and a sort of dull anger starts in his chest behind his exhaustion.

They have only just shut the door when someone calls, "Is that Loki?" and suddenly a man sticks his head around the corner of the door. He's tall, like Loki, with the same dark hair, hollow face, and pale skin.

"Laufey," Odin spits out, his voice full of venom. "Meet your son."

Laufey steps forward, his hand outstretched, but drops it when he realizes that's not going anywhere. He swallows, his Adam's apple constricting downwards, and a ghost of a smile flicks across his lips.

"Loki," he says, and there's something almost familiar about the quality of his voice, the rich depth of it, that makes Loki step forward in spite of himself. "It's a pleasure."

And then from behind him comes Farbauti, with her sleek, dark hair; her sad emerald eyes. She has Loki's neck, long and graceful, and there's something of him in her lips, in the way they curve slightly at the corners. "Hello, my child," she says, her voice low and husky, holding out her hand as well.

There is a beat of silence. Loki looks from Laufey to Farbauti and back, drinking in the sight of his biological parents, his mouth dry. After a bit, he clears his throat, twists his fingers over each other in front of him.

"Thank you for sending Fandral and Sif to get me," he says.

"It was the least we could do," says Laufey, smiling at Loki and simultaneously shooting an absolutely poisonous look in Odin's direction.

"You _must _know that we would have sent for him had we known where he was!" Odin's face has gone red, and he's breathing a little harder than usual.

Thor steps forward. "The important thing is that my brother is home now," he says, but Laufey and Odin continue to glare at each other. Frigga says something about getting them all some coffee and heads into the kitchen. Farbauti curls her fingers around her husband's arm, clearly trying to get him to calm down some.

Loki's leaning against the wall of the house, fiddling with a loose thread on his jeans. He watches them all out of the corners of his eyes, biting down on his lower lip and thinking about how _difficult _it's going to be to adjust back to all this. He hasn't even been back for an hour and already he's drained; trying to find a way out.

(Plus that, there's the whole problem with having to meet Laufey and Farbauti; wondering how he should feel towards them, wondering if getting to know them will mean losing the tentative friendship he's got with Thor.)

Really, all he can think of is Tony, and the iron poisoning, and if he's okay now, and why the hell he hasn't contacted him once, why he wasn't at the airport too. Loki's not sure if he should be angry at Tony or just relieved that he's finally back in Manhattan and will see him soon, and he clenches his fists, frowning at the floor.

Thor's hand on his shoulder interrupts his train of thought, and he looks up, blinking against the brilliance of his brother's smile. Thor doesn't try to hold back how delighted he is that Loki's back, and Loki wasn't expecting anything less, but it annoys him that Thor hasn't asked him once what happened, or if he himself is happy to be there.

"Shall we go back to Anthony's apartment?" Thor asks, his voice quiet, and Loki nods, feeling his body relax slightly. Thor pulls his car keys out of his pocket and calls:

"Loki and I are going now," and immediately Laufey walks away from Odin, with whom he was still having a pretty heated staring contest, and places his hand on Loki's shoulder. Loki flinches away instinctively, and Laufey breathes out in a soft sigh.

"I hope I'll see you again in the near future?" he says. Loki shrugs, glancing at Odin, who is seething; at Frigga, who has finished making the coffee and is pouring it into some mugs with a tiny, sad smile on her face. His family wasn't important to him before he was taken and it wouldn't especially be important now if he couldn't feel it fracturing, splintering under the weight of his biological parents returning.

He walks out, and Thor follows, and the whole ride to he and Tony's apartment, he cannot shake the lost feeling that is coming over him, settling over his shoulders.

/

Tony's discharge papers come three days before Yinsen originally intended, mostly because everyone—the doctors, nurses, and Bruce—is sick of hearing Tony whine about how he feels fine and wants to go home so he can get the ransom money and pay for Loki to return, but also because Tony's recovered remarkably fast from the operation and his bloodstream is taking well to the new element. He goes home, calling Rhodey and Clint and Steve and pretty much everyone, telling them to come to his apartment for a party. (Thor doesn't answer his cell, which Tony thinks is odd, but then he figures Thor's probably doing something with Jane.)

The only person he doesn't call is Loki, but he _wants _to, even if all he hears is the ringtone and then that automated voice saying, "We're sorry, but the person whom you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time".

Bruce drives him home, and when they arrive Clint and Natasha are already there, waiting outside the door. Natasha's typing something into her phone and barely glances up as Tony comes to the door and opens it, but Clint nudges his arm.

"So what's the celebration? Loki came back?"

Tony goes tense. "No, I fixed myself." The four of them go inside and he lifts his shirt, showing them the electromagnet, how it glows brighter now than it did before. There are fresh scars over the old ones surrounding the metal, and for a minute everyone's quiet, just looking.

Then Natasha says, "What was wrong with it before?"

He clears his throat, and Bruce immediately makes a beeline for the kitchen, calling, "Who wants what drink?" over his shoulder. Tony makes a mental note to thank Bruce later and says:

"I want everything. I want a fuckload of alcohol in my system before midnight."

Clint's laughing. "Let's play beer pong," he suggests, and Natasha and Bruce set up the Solo cups while Tony and Clint start taking the drinks out of the refrigerator. A few minutes later, Steve and Phil show up, and Tony tells them what's being celebrated, and Steve says something about it being unsafe to drink alcohol right after an operation, and Tony tells him to lighten up, he's killing the mood. He's already on his third glass of Stolichnaya before Rhodey shows up, and he slings his arm across the engineer's shoulder, talking too loudly in his ear.

"Do you know where Thor is? Because I don't. He's the only one who didn't show up and it's absolutely crushing my soul. I can't play any fun drinking games without that asshole." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell again, dialing Thor's number, but it rings and rings and there's no answer, so he tosses it on the sofa. He's feeling careless and healthy, healthier than he's felt in well over a year. There's no reason to be worried about Thor or anyone else. Natasha puts the radio on full blast, and everyone's laughing, and it feels like there are seventy people there, instead of seven.

Bruce orders a pizza, and Tony has to go upstairs to get his money, since the money for Loki's release is stuffed under the sofa cushions and he can't use that—no matter how fucking drunk he gets, and he's not quite at 'crashing into furniture and laughing hysterically about it' yet, but he's getting there.

When he comes back downstairs, it's quieter, and it takes him a minute to notice that someone's turned the music off. "Aw hey," he says, "come on, I mean maybe Nicki Minaj wasn't the greatest choice but she's better than—"

"Stark," interrupts Steve, frowning and pointing at the door, and Tony looks over, and his jaw drops, because Loki's standing there, wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he disappeared, looking rail-thin and haggard and _exhausted, _more tired than Tony's ever seen anyone look in his life. Behind him is Thor, arms folded across his chest, _glaring _at all of them like he wants to murder anyone who was enjoying themselves while his little brother was gone.

"Loki has been returned to us," is what Thor says, before backing up and slamming the door, and Tony can't figure out why suddenly everyone's staring at him, pissed off, like he was supposed to _know _Loki was coming home tonight, like he was supposed to go through his operation and not want to celebrate afterwards. Natasha stacks up the Solo cups and she and Clint put them back in the kitchen and then leave. Phil and Steve put the bottles back in the refrigerator while Rhodey wipes up an alcohol spill on the coffee table and Bruce carefully takes the wad of money from Tony's hand and sets it on top of the television.

The whole time, Loki is just staring at Tony, like he's never seen him before, his head tilted to one side. There's an odd expression in his eyes, something pained and deep and wanting and (_terrified?_), and he clears his throat, trying to break the stillness of the air.

"Catch you later," Bruce mutters before he leaves, and Rhodey follows directly behind, and then it's just Tony and Loki, and Tony, for all he's been dreaming about this moment since Loki was taken, has no idea what to say.

"Shakespeare," is what finally comes out of his mouth, his voice too loud in the silence. "Holy fuck, it's good to see you." And he starts forward, and it's then that Loki moves, but it's not what Tony was expecting—he steps _away _from him, eyes narrowed, jaw set tight.

"Hey, whoa," says Tony. "What, you aren't still mad at me for calling you a walking thesaurus?"

Loki makes this face like, _honestly, Stark, _and, dropping his cell phone on the sofa, moves towards the stairs. He's nearly there when Tony grabs his wrist, spinning him around.

"Loki," he says, staring at him, into his hollowed-out emerald eyes. "Why are you being like this?"

For an answer, the younger man wrenches his arm out of Tony's grasp, rubbing the sensitive skin there and hissing out, "I have just been on the road, in four different places, all the while in the company of the two most repulsive people alive. I'm exhausted, I'm dirty, I'm sore, and I'm starving. How else would you _like _me to be?" He storms out, and Tony hears the bathroom door slam shut upstairs. He makes himself sit on the sofa, staring blankly at the television, which is blaring an old rerun of _I Love Lucy_, until he hears the shower turn off and the sound of Loki's footsteps crossing the hall into their room. Tony waits, drumming his fingers on his knee, for ten more minutes, then heads up himself.

Loki is already asleep, or appears to be, curled up tightly under the blankets, his hair just visible over the top. Tony's not sure what he's supposed to do, why everything feels wrong, and off, and about a million other things that he wasn't expecting to feel upon Loki's return, so he strips down to his boxers and climbs in behind him, switching off the bedside lamp and resting his hand on Loki's waist. Tony waits, but there is no sound except for Loki's slow, even breathing, so he lets himself relax, pressing his nose against the back of his neck. He smells different, like some strange chemical and sweat and something foreign, but Tony doesn't think too much about it, just shuts his eyes and drifts into sleep.

The alcohol, combined with the drugs from the hospital, makes him sleep heavily, and he doesn't notice when Loki gets up twenty minutes later and slips out of their room and downstairs, curling up on the sofa under an old comforter and staring at the ceiling, unable to get Thanos out of his mind.

**A/N: So this is the slightly revised ending. Does anyone like this one better? **

**I'm still apologizing for what's to come, by the way. **


	17. Seen That I'm Heading Down

**A/N: So I changed the ending of the last chapter kind of significantly, so if you haven't read that already, please do before you read this one.**

In the morning, Tony doesn't wake up until the sunlight streams through the window, piercing his eyelids and making him wince. He runs his tongue over his gums, tasting something like dead animal and wincing because his entire mouth feels heavy—even after nearly twelve years of dealing with hangovers, he's still not completely used to the god-awful taste of fucking leftover liquor that's crawled in the spaces between his teeth.

It's not until he feels the sheets tangled between his legs in a sweaty mess, while his arm stretches out over empty space next to him, that he realizes he's alone.

Groaning, he pinches the bridge of his nose with his hand and opens his eyes slowly—_slowly_—rolling over simultaneously to see what time it is. _Eleven forty-five_, the clock on his nightstand reads, and he figures he has enough time to maybe heat up some leftover chicken from a week ago before he has to head to class. "Loki," he calls, because why would Loki have left without him, but there's no answer and after a few seconds Tony forces his legs off the mattress and onto the ground. He stands up, wrapping the blanket around himself and shivering as the cold air hits his bare skin, and he walks into the hallway and peeks downstairs.

No Loki.

Okay, maybe he _was _really pissed off last night, and it wasn't just Tony's imagination or his exhaustion making him act out or whatever.

Frowning, Tony goes into the bathroom and stares in the mirror at his electromagnet; at the new, red scars surrounding it. The skin is sensitive when he touches it and he's quick in the shower, watching the water run down the glass cover of the magnet as he washes himself off. Once he's out, he checks his phone habitually for messages but there aren't any, and Jesus Christ what's up with _that_, because Loki was just with fucking _Thanos_ for the past _ever, _and Tony figured that once he got back he wouldn't be able to stay away from him for more than five seconds.

Still. Maybe by the time he's out of his engineering class Loki will be up for a late lunch and a talk, and then they can work out whatever's bothering him.

It does not occur to him, as he pulls on his _'I'm from Raxacoricofallipatorious' _sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that have gone soft with age, that even if Loki does stop being mad at him, he'll still have to figure out a way to explain the scarring around his electromagnet.

Tony stops at Starbucks on his way to class and is, consequently, five minutes late. The professor shoots him a _look _as he slides in, balancing a hot cup of coffee in one hand and a half-eaten loaf of pumpkin bread in the other, and he produces his widest smile and says, "We can't _all _be fully awake before six p.m.," causing the professor to frown and the majority of the class to laugh. Rhodey's not in class either, and Tony's weighing the options of sitting alone or skipping entirely so he can eat in peace when Justin Hammer waves him over. Tony hesitates, because Hammer's such a little _shit, _but he waves at him again and Tony tosses his shoulders up and down once, carelessly, before walking over and sitting next to Justin, his books sprawling over the table, scattering papers.

"So," is the first thing Justin says, once the professor's turned back to the blackboard. "I heard Loki's back."

"Yeah." Tony runs his fingers through his hair, causing it to stand on end for a second before falling back, and takes another sip of coffee. "He is." And then there's really nothing else to say, and for a long time the only sound aside from the professor's lecturing is Tony's breathing, low and even as he taps his fingers against the desk, staring blankly at a picture of a skyscraper in his textbook, thinking about Loki, about the way he looked last night, so fiercely, uncomprehendingly _furious. _

When class is over, Tony is one of the first to leave. He's halfway down the hall when a booming voice sounds behind him, slamming his full name into his eardrums. Moments later, Thor's hand clamps down on his shoulder, stopping him mid-step. For a second Tony thinks Thor is going to kill him, and honestly he wouldn't put it past him, considering how angry _he _was last night when he dropped Loki off, but when he turns around all he sees is Thor's usual expression, which is a mixture of jovial, frenetic, and full-on _hyper. _

"Anthony!" Thor bellows again, and Tony winces.

"They can hear you in Beijing," he points out. "What's up, Blondie?"

Keeping his hand on Tony's shoulder, Thor leads him out of the building and onto the quad, where a few students are mingling. It's cold outside and Tony shivers, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet a little while Thor glances around like what he has to say involves some government conspiracy theory and he wants total privacy in which to say it.

"I just wanted you to know that Thanos has been arrested," he says, after a long pause.

Tony raises his eyebrows—because _really_, if Thanos is in jail, why wasn't Loki in a better mood last night? "When did this happen?" he asks, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets and rocking back on his heels.

"Yesterday," Thor says. "While they were in Toronto."

"While they were where," Tony says, and his mouth falls open a little.

Thor frowns. "My brother did not tell you he was in Canada?" When Tony shakes his head, Thor shrugs, folding his arms across his chest. "Well, Laufey has connections in Canada, and—"

"Laufey, as in Loki's biological dad," Tony repeats, stepping back from Thor.

"Yes. He and Farbauti are here, you know."

"Uh."

Thor's frown deepens. "I cannot understand why my brother would not have told you these things… but it doesn't matter." (Except of course it does, and Tony's actually kind of starting to feel pretty pissed off himself.) "The point is, Laufey sent two police officers to get Loki, and they arrested Thanos. He will be extradited and tried here. I am not sure if he's in jail yet."

"Well, hot shit," is all Tony can say, running his fingers through his hair. He glances at his watch (_one-thirty, _it reads, positively _mocking _him with how quickly time moves), then gives Thor a quick, kind of fake smile before turning and starting off in the opposite direction. "Gotta run," he calls over his shoulder, and if Thor objects to Tony's sudden departure, he doesn't say anything.

To avoid any possible future conflict, Tony waits until he's sure he's out of Thor's line of sight before breaking into a sprint, backpack thumping against his body as he heads for the library, where he's ninety-nine point nine percent sure he'll find Loki. Even if the man is still pissed as _fuck _at him for whatever reason, he can't start a full-blown argument in his sacred sanctum.

When he gets there, he pauses for a second, breathing heavily, sweat piling up underneath the straps on his booksack as he tries to slow his heartbeat down. Then he goes inside, ignoring the _looks _he gets from the library aides standing at the checkout desks, and heads straight for the classical literature section. It's in the very back, so it's darker, and smells muskier, and Tony likes to think that someday they'll film some trippy horror movie here and maybe now that he's definitely going to live, if he's not too busy doing some engineering or physics crap, he could have a role in it.

Loki's sitting at a table in the far end of the section, his books spread out before him, laptop open and shining almost abnormally bright in the darkness. He's staring blankly at the screen, hand locked in his long, dark hair, and Tony allows himself a second to marvel at how _lovely _his boyfriend is before heading over to him. He calls his name, and Loki fucking _jumps, _which Tony was not expecting—and it sort of makes him sad, because Loki knows Tony's voice, and he's only been gone for what, ten days?

'_What the fuck did Thanos do to him?' _Tony thinks, and then he forces one corner of his lips up into a half-smile and says:

"So hey, listen, I heard about Thanos and how he got arrested."

A shadow crosses Loki's face before he turns back to his laptop, a tiny frown creasing the space between his eyebrows. "Mm."

"That's good, isn't it? I mean, now not only are you safe from him, but also the world no longer has to benefit from those god-awful shirts he used to make." It's not particularly funny, but Tony means it to break the tension he can feel rising between them. Loki glances sideways at him and does not even crack a smile, and Tony starts frowning too because okay, this is _bad. _He makes a gesture at one of the chairs like, _can I sit here? _and Loki just shrugs, one-shouldered, indicating that he could not give a single fuck. Tony tosses his backpack down on the ground and sits, leaning his elbows on the table and running his hand over the glossy pages of Loki's textbook.

"What are you looking at?" he asks conversationally, and Loki immediately—like a goddamn reflex—grabs the book, shoving it out of Tony's reach.

"Studying for a linguistics test I missed last week," he mutters. "Don't lose my place, Stark."

Tony's frown deepens because _hostility? _Really, Loki? He breathes out heavy through his mouth, feeling the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind his temples. After a few seconds, he tries a different tactic:

"I heard the reason Thanos got arrested was because of your biological parents."

Loki _does _look at him this time, for half a minute. "Who—"

"Thor," Tony interrupts. "Thor filled me in on pretty much everything." He hopes his tone conveys _exactly _how he feels about that—having to find out information like that Loki was in fucking _Toronto _while Tony was holed up in the hospital, or that Laufey and Farbauti are actually in Manhattan, from _Thor, _is pretty degrading—but Loki just does another shrug, passing his fingers through his hair again.

"Yes," he says, finally. "I met them yesterday."

_Oh, _Tony thinks, suddenly understanding. _So that's why he was in such a fucking horrible mood last night. _Laufey and Farbauti have always been kind of a sensitive subject for Loki—he's always had this torn desire to either meet them or murder them, and Tony knows it can't be easy to have to think about how you were once this little emerald-eyed baby that no one wanted.

He sucks in a breath and starts to speak, but Loki cuts him off with: "Do you want to go get lunch?" and it's so unexpected that Tony has to take a minute to compose himself before replying in the affirmative, his heartbeat quickening exponentially. He thinks maybe Loki's coming around; maybe he's realizing that hey, he's _home, _he's with Tony, he should be celebrating.

They pack up Loki's things in silence before heading out to their usual Italian restaurant, and the whole way Tony remains deliberately oblivious to the anger in Loki's eyes, simmering like an oncoming summer thunderstorm.

/

The restaurant is crowded and noisy, and Loki flinches a little at the sheer amount of _people _occupying the same space before he and Tony are led to a booth near the back. The waiter is all smiles when he recognizes them and says something about how they haven't been in in a while and he was starting to worry. Tony raises his eyebrows and Loki makes a sound in the back of his throat, like something between a laugh and a cough, and for a second it's just _them _again, them against the world, and the feeling of camaraderie is almost overwhelming. Tony sends Loki a hesitant smile which Loki starts to return until his eyes fall on the gentle blue glow in Tony's chest and he remembers _hey, no, I'm upset, you can't make me smile right now, _and his entire demeanor falls back into what it was before.

Tony crashes back against the booth, looking annoyed, and orders a glass of wine. Loki asks for the same, and when the waiter is gone they fall to glaring at each other, not even looking at their menus.

Finally, Tony says, "Where's your car?"

It's not the question Loki was expecting, so it catches him a little off guard.

"My car?"

"Yeah." Tony unwraps the paper holder from his napkin and begins folding it, making a tiny airplane in the center of their table. "Odin's gonna be pissed if he finds out you don't have the car he got you anymore."

Loki narrows his eyes slightly. "I hardly think Odin is worrying about whether I'm still driving his _car _or not, Stark." He reaches under the table, idly playing with a loose thread on his jeans, unable for whatever reason to look straight at Tony.

"Well, fuck," Tony snaps, "I'm fucking _sorry. _I was just _asking. _Christ." He nearly snatches his wine out of the waiter's hand when he approaches moments later with their drinks, and drains half of it in one gulp. Loki frowns a little, and the waiter has this look on his face like, _why me? _He takes their orders with an Olympic speed and dashes off as fast as is humanely possible.

"Anyway, I don't know where my car is," Loki says after a bit. "It could be in a forest in upstate New York, it could be in Canada, it could be in Vermont or New Hampshire. I haven't had it or my keys since Thanos took me."

Tony does this thing with his face where he manages to look confused and upset and incredibly angry all at once, and Loki has to remind himself that yes, he's still angry at Tony, and no, his sheer fucking _loyalty _is not going to erase that fact.

"Did Thanos take your car?"

"No, Justin Hammer did. He claims to know you?" and then Tony's mouth actually drops open, and Loki suddenly realizes that Tony didn't know Justin was working as a double agent. There's an incredibly thick silence, and Tony looks like he's debating whether to run out and kill Justin _now, _or just plan it slowly over the course of several days.

Finally, Tony says, "What a _dick._" Like it's the best he can come up with, and if Loki were in a better mood, he'd appreciate the effort. But he's _not_—he's still exhausted, because sleeping on the sofa actually means _not _sleeping, period; he actually cannot stop thinking about Thanos, and that look in his eyes before the police car door shut; he's strangely worried about Amora; and he's angry as all hell right now and Tony does not seem to give a single fuck.

"Yes, well, point is, my car is gone, and I will have to get a new one." Loki frowns down at the table, running a finger over the bottom of his wine glass. The silence between them is longer this time, and he's about to excuse himself to the bathroom for two hours when Tony says:

"Listen, Shakespeare? There's something I don't get… why didn't you ever _tell _me Thanos had come back?"

Oh. Well, _shit. _Loki was not expecting that question either, and it pisses him off, and he glares at Tony and says, with his lip curled into a sneer, "The same reason you didn't tell me you're dying."

It's like Loki's dropped a bombshell between them. Tony's entire face goes through a series of emotions, most of which Loki cannot identify, until finally, his hand resting on his electromagnet, he leans forward, across the table, lowering his voice slightly.

"How did you find out?"

"Again, Justin told me." Loki folds his arms across his chest. "It certainly tells me where your priorities lie, Tony, when you will tell someone like Hammer that you've got iron poisoning, but you won't bother to tell _me. _I don't understand you."

"You understand enough to know that we had the same reasoning as to why we kept everything from each other—and wait a second, how did Hammer even find out, I never told him—"

"You let him use your bathroom," Loki says, waving a hand dismissively, immediately putting this fact in the same category of importance as a white crayon, or perhaps the wasp. "But please, enlighten me: what _was _your reasoning?" His entire body has gone tense without him even realizing, and his chest starts shaking, the way it always does when he's nervous or upset.

Tony makes a face like he'd honestly rather be anywhere but here and sighs. "I didn't want to get you involved," he says, "because I figured I could do it all myself. I'm a fucking arrogant bastard, Loki. You know that. I don't ask for help—"

"And you are going to _die _because of it," Loki snaps, anger flushing his cheeks. Tony frowns for maybe the millionth time that afternoon, tapping his fingers together.

"Actually… I'm not dying anymore; I found an element which I could put in place of the iron, and… I had the operation earlier this week. I'm okay now. I'm cured." He offers up a smile which Loki does not return. The younger man clenches his fists, then abruptly slams them on the table, with such force that the salt shaker topples over.

"So you _did _ask for help!" He's not aware that he's crying until he feels the tears cut down his cheeks in hot, fast streaks. "You fucking liar—"

"—never said I _didn't _ask for help, Shakespeare, just said I prefer _not _to—"

"—and stop _calling _me that ri_dic_ulous nickname, Stark, for god's sake, it's not going to make me any less angry at you—"

"—has it never occurred to you that I'm no happier with you for refusing to let me in on the fact that oh, _Thanos _was back in town, and maybe if you'd told me I could've gotten some help for you?"

"Well _I _don't ask for help _either, _Stark, but Thanos was _nothing _in light of your poisoning; if you'd told me I could've called up a specialist to save you—"

"_No, you fucking couldn't have," _Tony interrupts for the thousandth time, but there's something different in his tone now, something harsh, "because you were on the road with Thanos and he might have _killed _you, for god's sake, and what kind of help could you have given me then? And wouldn't you have just been _begging _for someone to save you while he cut you open with a knife, but oh, no, too late, because you were too damn _proud _to mention that your former _rapist _was back." His words slice through the air and hang, ringing and angry, between them. For a while neither speaks; Tony's cheeks are flushed, his breathing coming rapidly; Loki's eyes are welling over with tears he refuses to let fall, his face hardening, fists clenching tighter.

When Tony speaks again, his voice is too loud in the stillness that has come over them. "We'd better go," is what he says, throwing a twenty on the table and standing up. "I can't eat."

"Fine," Loki snaps. "I can't deal with this shit anyway." They storm out, Loki slightly in front because his legs are so long, and it's not until they're in the parking lot that it occurs to both of them, almost simultaneously, that Loki still needs a ride back to the apartment.

There is nothing, really, like the indignation of having to rely on the man with whom you've just had a huge public fight for transport.

They go home, and the air is thick with what they want to say to each other but can't. When they arrive at the apartment, Loki immediately goes upstairs and returns to the living room a moment later, carrying his heavy, down blanket, the one that was a gift from Frigga when they moved in together, his pillow, and the paperback novels he doesn't dare carry in his booksack for fear of them getting ripped up or stolen. He throws it all on the sofa, along with his textbooks and laptop that Tony had in the car, and the physicist stares at the mess he's making.

"What in the everliving fuck are you doing?"

Loki spears him with an icy glare. "For now," he says, coolly, "I think it would be better if I stayed down here."

There is a half-second of absolute _pain _that crosses Tony's face before he masks it over, tearing a tiny piece of skin off his lower lip with his teeth and returning Loki's glare. "Yeah, cool, whatever," he says, all nonchalance and barely-concealed hatred because if they're going to be enemies then _fine, _but they're going to do it all the way. "Like I give a single flying fuck-on-a-rope." He storms upstairs, grabbing his booksack on the way, and the walls vibrate with the sound of his door slamming shut.

The sudden silence that follows makes Loki think of a vacuum, with the way all the noise has just been sucked out of the air, leaving his head ringing. Even though it's only three in the afternoon, or nearly, he finds himself grabbing two aspirin and a glass of orange juice before turning off all the lights and curling up under his blanket. He turns the television on and mutes it, allowing his eyes to burn with the residue of their tears as he stares blankly at the screen. He's nearly asleep when his phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out, thinking that if it's Tony, nothing on this goddamn planet will stop him from taking a steak knife upstairs and impaling the man straight through the heart.

But it's not Tony, it's an unfamiliar number with a strange area code, and Loki's about to delete it when he sees the actual text, and then he can't stop the small smile from forming on his face.

'_Hey, Loki, it's Fandral. How are you doing?'_

'_Shit,' _Loki texts back, and the response is almost instantaneous:

'_Aw, I was hoping to hear "great", or even "fantastic, thank you for saving my life, you great handsome thing".'_

Loki snorts; types, _'You hardly saved my life on your own, you know; I have no cause to be impressed with you.'_

'_And this is the first time that my looks alone have not gotten me an automatic spot in someone's bed. Ah well. You can't win them all. _

'_Regardless, would you like to meet up sometime in the near future? I can't guarantee tomorrow, because of work, but… sometime?'_

Okay, Loki's _blushing _now, thinking of Fandral, of that charming smile, those gorgeous eyes. _'Sure, okay,' _he texts. _'Whenever you're free.' _Then he shuts his phone off and presses his face against the pillow, trying to fall asleep, trying not to care that this technically constitutes as cheating.

Upstairs, staring at the ceiling, his entire body shaking with the intensity of his anger combined with the fear (yes, _fear, _Anthony Edward Stark is actually admitting to feel _afraid_) of losing Loki, Tony slips a cigarette between his lips and lights it, breathing in and blowing out slowly, allowing the nicotine to fill his head, cancel out the ache behind his temples. Slate gray smoke curls around his ears, through his hair, filtered slightly in the light of the electromagnet. He smokes the cigarette down and puts it out, and ends up falling asleep as well, his mind on Loki, on how _pissed _he is, and how _dead _Tony will be if he can't figure out a way to win Loki over again.


	18. I Brought This On Myself

It's a few days later when Loki is in the middle of his Latin class that he gets the text from Fandral, asking if he's free tonight, if he wants to go get dinner or catch a movie or what. He lets the screen turn dark again as he thinks about it, pondering the pros and cons of letting Fandral take him out. Since he came back home—only three days ago, which is weird, because it feels like he's been here forever now—he and Tony have been skating on thin ice around each other, not really talking, barely acknowledging each other's presences. Loki stays on the couch and is usually up and out of the apartment by the time Tony's awake, and when Loki comes home in the afternoon Tony's either in class or out with Bruce and Steve and the rest of their friends (safely—albeit unintentionally—reconstructing the gap between Loki and the rest of 'the group', just like it was two, almost three years ago). They don't actually _see _each other until eight or nine in the evening, when Tony comes crashing in, cigarette dangling from his lips, books barely balanced under his arms, and even then they just kind of nod at each other before Tony makes his way upstairs and slams his door shut.

Then Loki takes his shower and turns off the lights and falls asleep, and dreams of Thanos, of waking up in the car again with his head pressed against the glass and absolutely no idea of how he got there. Part of him wants to let Tony know what's going on—and let it never be said that Loki has ever blatantly _ignored _something he's subconsciously feeling, even if he only thinks about it for point-five seconds before filing it away under _'things I want to think about when I'm forty and emotionally stable'_—but he can't actually force himself to focus on what happened while he was away without feeling his entire chest start to clench up, sending him into pre-panic mode. (Plus that he's still sort-of pissed at Tony about the electromagnet, and Loki is incredibly good at holding grudges against anyone, ever, for any reason.)

The truth is that both he and Tony are too goddamn _stubborn _for their own good, and while the rational, sane, _thinking _part of him wants to say that _no, _he _doesn't _have the right to remain angry at Tony, not after he hid something like Thanos from him, his selfish, more vocal side says _yes, go ahead, be vengeful and savage and arcane, he doesn't deserve a bit of you, not after everything that's gone on between you two. _

(Which is really, _really _stupid if Loki thinks about it, since after everything they've been through together it's surprising that they haven't gone out and gotten a marriage license yet, but that's just one of those things that Loki's decided to put under '_I'll think about it tomorrow, when I can stand it.'_)

Let it also be said that Loki has a habit of picking particularly nasty characters in literature to base some of his actions on, Scarlett O'Hara being one of them.

Ignoring the very quiet voice in the back of his mind which is reminding him _hey, remember the last time you went out and tried to forget Tony in someone else, _he unlocks his phone's screen again and texts back:

'_Sure, I'd love dinner, what time?'_

Fandral's response is almost instantaneous: _'Seven okay?'_

'_Yeah.' _Loki catches himself smiling at his phone (_smiling _at his _phone, _and he knows he's _got _to look uncharacteristically happy, what the hell is this) as he texts Fandral about where to pick him up (not Tony's apartment, but outside of the library, the least likely place Tony will be to see him).

It occurs to Loki, vaguely, as he's sliding his phone back into his pocket and copying declensions off the board, that Fandral is a bit _old, _but then it doesn't really matter to him, not when they're just going out to dinner, not when Fandral is (probably) viewing him from a purely concerned standpoint, wanting to check up on him, make sure he's okay.

Right?

/

After his classes are over, Loki heads straight for the library, cold wind whipping at his heels and reminding him suddenly that he _really _needs to ask Odin what he should do about his car. He has about an hour and a half to kill before Fandral's supposed to show up, and spends it curled up against the concrete wall outside the entrance, reading _The Bell Jar _by Sylvia Plath and wondering just how shitty your life has to be for you to stick your head into a gas oven.

He's just read the part about the first electroshock treatment when an all-too familiar voice calls, "Loki?" and he whips his head up lightning fast and sees Tony in his car with a few other people—Rhodey and Bruce and Steve and some balding guy Loki doesn't recognize. Tony's hanging his body all the way over so he can look out the window, and the expression on his face is not friendly.

"You need a ride back to the apartment?" Tony asks, and oh Loki could _shoot _him for his nonchalance, for that tiny smirk curling the corner of his lips, for acting like there is nothing going on between them. He bookmarks his place and stands, walking over to the car and resting his hands on the door, forcing Tony to move back slightly.

"Actually," Loki says, all disdain and cruelty and coolness, mouth just short of sneering as he looks in, "I'm going to be late coming in tonight."

Something shifts in Tony's expression, just for a second, but Loki doesn't miss it, and he's not sure if he wants to rejoice that he's made Tony feel like shit or if he wants to step in front of a subway train because _damn, he's made Tony feel like shit. _"Where are you going?" Tony asks, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

"None of your business," Loki spits.

"Oh, right, I forgot," Tony says, eyes flashing now, body going tense the way it always does when he's preparing for a fight. "Nothing you do these days is any of my business, is it?" And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what he means by that, and everyone in the car is raising their eyebrows, and Loki takes a step back because okay, that was _low_.

"Like you ever tell me before doing things yourself," he retaliates, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms across his chest.

Tony _glares _at him then, and the expression on his face is devoid of anything but anger and irascibility and something very close to hatred. He opens his mouth like he's going to say something—and Loki swears to a god he doesn't believe in that if Tony fucking tries to tell him he _can't _go out tonight because they have to _talk _or because Tony's sick of him being _distant _or _whatever_, he's going to commit suicide or murder or both—but then he shuts it again, putting the car back in drive.

"Fine," he snarls. "Have fun." He jerks the wheel slightly to the left and drives off, the window rolling up as he goes, and Loki walks back to where he's left his things and sits down, resting his forehead against the cool cement and breathing in deeply, trying to dispel the tight, fiery feeling in his chest. His hand trembles slightly against his leg and he has to concentrate on _not _thinking about Tony so that he doesn't fall into a full-blown anxiety attack.

By the time Fandral comes, Loki's calmed down some and is staring at the veins in his thin wrists, standing out blue and almost ethereal against his pale skin. He can still faintly see the scars from where the rope burned him and is rubbing his thumb against the still slightly sensitive spot, wondering if it will ever go away, when he hears a horn honk from the street. He looks up and there's Fandral, window rolled down, waving and smiling that utterly _charming _smile and calling, "Loki, hey," and Loki actually _smiles _for half a second as he gets his things and heads over. He tosses his books, backpack, and laptop in the back of the car before getting comfortable in the passenger seat, and then Fandral drives off, turning down his music—The Smiths, for fuck's sake, and Loki would've _never _pegged Fandral as an indie fan—and throwing Loki a quick grin and a tiny wink before concentrating on the road.

"So how have you been doing?" he asks, after a brief interval of not-quite-comfortable silence, and Loki shrugs a little, running his fingers through his hair in a way that is only _slightly _nervous.

"Better now that I'm back," he says.

Fandral laughs once, shortly. "Should be," he says, "considering who you were with and all."

And then Loki has to literally _fight _the impulse to say, _you didn't know him, _because a.) that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever to say about Thanos, and b.) why on _Earth _would Loki want to defend that man? To anyone? "I doubt my recovery time would have gone half as quickly if it hadn't been you who saved me," he says finally, and Fandral's grin grows wider.

"What happened to your theory that I wasn't the only one who saved you and therefore you had no reason to like me?" He reaches over and gives Loki's shoulder a light squeeze when he says this, and Loki's not entirely sure if Fandral is the sort of person who touches just for the hell of it or if Fandral is trying to take advantage of him or what, but he allows himself to feel vaguely discomforted for only half a second before saying:

"It got displaced by _your _theory that you could get me in your bed with looks alone," and Fandral laughs at that, loud and boisterous and _real, _and Loki feels a swell in his chest because _damn, _what he said wasn't even that funny but it's been _ages _since he's had someone laugh at something he said.

And then they're arriving at the restaurant, and Fandral is parking, and he and Loki are getting out of the car and going in, and the waiter is leading them to a table near the back, and it occurs to Loki that _hey, _this is a _date. _Like, an actual _date_, not just Fandral being nice, and he feels that surge of panic again before forcing it to subside because _what in the hell could possibly go wrong between he and this man who is his biological father's best friend? _(Just that sentence alone is what's freaking Loki the fuck out because honestly, he has no business going to dinner with Laufey's Canadian policeman friend, and anyway, if anything _does _happen between them Loki's pretty sure either Laufey or Farbauti will _murder _Fandral.)

They sit down and order drinks—iced tea for Fandral, red wine for Loki, which causes Fandral to shoot him a mildly impressed glance that almost has him reaching for his phone to text Tony _hey, congratulations, your alcoholism has finally gotten me somewhere, _until he remembers the scenario and the fact that he and Tony are basically enemies now and oh _god _it hurts—and then Fandral leans across the table, folding his hands together in front of him.

"What do you study at Berkeley?" he asks.

"Linguistics and literature," Loki says, liking the way the words roll off his tongue, and a tiny smile grows on his face when he thinks of all the work he's missed and how long it'll take him to catch up. (Loki's an utter nerd sometimes.)

"Like what specifically?"

"Shakespeare," and here Loki winces a little because okay, he's trying _so hard _not to think about Tony right now but that name basically triggers Tony's face and his scent and his _everything_ to Loki. "Whitman, sometimes, if the teacher is feeling generous. Mostly we just read a lot of classic novels and then write extensive summaries of them."

Fandral nods. "And I bet you make excellent scores."

"Top in my class," Loki says, which is actually only half-true, because he's been away for so long and even before Thanos captured him he was slipping in his studies due to depression and distraction and a million other things he can't even remember anymore, but Fandral doesn't have to know that.

"Oh good, I picked an intelligent guy to save," he says. "It's too bad I'm not in college anymore; otherwise I'd be _begging _you to help me with my classwork." He throws Loki another utterly _flirtatious _smile, one that is almost entirely sensual in the way it curves up his lips, and Loki feels a slight flush rising up on his cheeks as he replies:

"I'm sure classwork would be the _last _thing on your mind."

(Where did _that _come from?)

Fandral laughs, surprised, and gives one of Loki's hands a squeeze as the waiter comes back with their drinks and asks if they're ready to order. They do, and then there's a few more minutes of almost-but-not-quite awkward silence before Fandral blurts:

"Are you seeing anyone?"

It isn't like Loki was expecting Fandral to know about Tony; isn't like he wasn't expecting the question almost from the moment Fandral first laid eyes on him this evening, but it still catches him off guard and he leans back in his seat, taking a sip of his wine and deigning not to answer for a few seconds, leaving Fandral hanging by a _thread _across from him.

He thinks maybe if circumstances were slightly different, he'd say _no_, maybe even slide over to Fandral's side of the table and put his hand between his legs right there in front of god and everyone. But that's not who he is, and that's not what he wants, and whether either of them want to admit it or not, he and Tony are actually still _together, _still sharing an apartment and everything… and besides, Fandral has told Loki already that he's Laufey's _friend_, and Loki cannot forget that.

So he says, "Yes," and watches Fandral's expression falter slightly before that smile is back, and he's flipping his soft dark blond hair out of his eyes and saying:

"I'm sure whoever it is feels damn lucky to have you."

Loki can't respond to that without feeling like he's either going to burst into tears or start screaming about what a _terrible _person Tony's been lately, so he just smiles and says nothing, and after a bit Fandral starts in on some other subject, and Loki just sits there and listens and lets the man's words wash over him like rain.

/

After his fight with Loki, Tony feels _extra _determined to get himself as shitfaced as possible, to forget everything that's been happening lately because _so much shit _has been happening since Loki's come home, and maybe point-one percent of it has been good (and that point-one percent is the fact that Loki is home at all). He, Rhodey, Steve, Bruce, and Happy—his newest friend, or should Tony say _addition to the group _because the reality of everything is that he only has two real _friends, _and they are Bruce and Loki, and he's losing one of those at a rate which is more than slightly alarming—head downtown to Valhalla, an out-of-the-way bar that plays weird techno music which everyone mostly tries to ignore by downing as much alcohol as they can before their livers burst. They show their I.D.s to a security guard who looks like he could give half a fuck how old they are, then go to the bar, which despite the early hour is already crammed with people, most of whom Tony recognizes from Berkeley. The physics major orders a White Russian for himself and fucking _tequila shots _for his friends—not because he's trying to ease them into the night but because he's feeling like too much of an asshole to get them anything better—and drinks his in _maybe _three gulps. Steve takes his tequila with a grim face and heads off to the other end of the bar, presumably where he can sit down and order actual _food, _and after a few seconds Rhodey and Happy join him.

Then it's just Bruce and Tony, and Bruce is asking for a pina colada, "with the straw and the little umbrella," and Tony's laughing at him and getting his second glass of White Russian and leaning back in his barstool, feeling kind of okay about life for approximately three seconds before Bruce says:

"So what's going on with you and Loki? And don't tell me 'nothing', because you two haven't fought that viciously since high school. Or ever."

Tony frowns into his glass. "_Must _we ruin the moment with serious shit?" he asks, and Bruce gives him this _look, _like _yeah, we do, _and Tony breathes out a huge sigh, letting Bruce know what an _inconvenience _it is for him to talk about his _feelings, _before taking another sip of his drink and setting it down near his elbow. "It's really not that big of a deal," he starts. "I just… uh. I may have forgotten to tell Loki about my electromagnet." He passes his hand subconsciously over his chest as he speaks, and Bruce makes a disapproving sound at the back of his throat.

"_Tony._"

"Well, and when was I supposed to tell him, exactly? He went off and got kidnapped before I had a chance—"

"You had six months, from what you've said," Bruce interrupts, and Tony makes a face and drinks some more because he _isn't properly equipped in the emotional sense to deal with shit like this, _and _especially _not at night when all he wants is to get drunk and forget that yes, he didn't tell Loki he was dying, and yes, he didn't tell _anyone else, _either, except Bruce Banner, and yes, that's _probably _a really bad thing.

Not to mention the fact that literally _no one else _knows yet, either. And Tony's not entirely sure if he _wants _them to, because now he's cured, and what's the point in dwelling on the past?

So instead of answering, he just drinks, and drinks some more, and eventually he and Bruce get up and join the other guys, who are sitting with piles of food on their plates and kind of chatting in that awkward way people will chat when they know a lot about each other from various sources and really aren't sure if they're _supposed _to know any of it. Tony plops down next to Steve and slings an arm across his shoulders and feels the man tense beneath him, uncomfortable, but Tony's at the point where he's _almost _too drunk to care and _is _too drunk to take his arm away, so they just sort of all remain like that for the rest of the evening, and eventually things lighten up between the five of them, even though Tony's the only one who is actually _drunk _and is acting sort of _obnoxious _and it's kind of really _annoying_. When it's nearly midnight they leave, throwing tips on their dirty plates and stumbling out, laughing at some joke Rhodey's just said. Bruce quietly takes Tony's keys on the way to the parking lot and casually offers to drive them all home, and because Tony's exhausted and a little nauseous he doesn't object.

Rhodey and Happy live in the dorms, same as Bruce, so he drops off Steve first, at the house he has with Phil, and then Tony at his apartment. Tony gets out of the car, then leans against the window until Bruce rolls it down, a deliberately neutral expression in his eyes.

"I'm gonna come get my car in the morning," Tony says. "That's okay?"

Bruce nods, seeing Tony's silent _well thanks for not letting me drive and kill us all _and replying with, "That's okay," which is his own personal brand of _you're welcome_.

Then he backs out of the apartment complex parking lot, and Tony realizes five-point-four seconds later that his house key is on the damn key ring, which is _also_ where the car key is, which _means _that Bruce has his house key.

_Fuck, _Tony thinks, before walking up to the door and knocking a few times. There is no answer for a long time, and Tony's starting to think that maybe _he _got home before Loki—which would be _weird_—when suddenly the door opens and Loki lets him in, a sleepy expression in his eyes and the tiniest of frowns creasing the space between his eyebrows.

"Where's your keys?" he asks, yawning, as Tony walks in and shuts the door behind him.

"Used them in a science experiment," Tony says, because he's _drunk _and he doesn't _have _to make sense, and Loki's frown deepens as Tony laughs at his own goddamn _wittiness._

"Stark," he starts, and Tony claps a hand on his shoulder, hard, not thinking, and nearly snaps:

"_Jesus, _Loki, it was a _joke. _They're with Banner," and it's not until Loki fucking _shoves _him away that Tony realizes he was about three seconds away from _hitting _him, or at least he had all the appearances of it. Loki's glaring at him, arms folded, muscles tense, skin paler than ever in the moonlight coming through the sliding glass door they have in the back, and even though he's about as drunk as he's been since New Year's, and even though they've been under the same roof for four days now, Tony is only _just _noticing the dark circles under Loki's eyes, the way his cheekbones cast shadows on his face, how rail-thin and _battered _he looks.

It's _terrifying._

Tony opens his mouth, starts to say something, but Loki cuts him off:

"I think you should go to bed," and Tony thinks, _okay, shut me out, fine, can't guarantee that I'll still be here when you're actually ready to talk._

"I think you should go to bed _with me,_" is what he says out loud, but Loki just goes back to the sofa and lies down, curling himself into the blankets like he's making a cocoon, and after a few seconds Tony storms upstairs and into his room, where he shuts the door and falls on his bed, passing out almost instantly despite the whirl of thoughts that were circling his brain only moments before.

His last conscious thought is that _no, _they _aren't _going to be okay, he and Loki. Not now, and not ever again.

**A/N: What do you guys think?**

**Also, as a purely hypothetical question, if Tony were to cheat on Loki with someone, who would you rather him cheat with? **


	19. Oceans In Between Us

**A/N: The beginning of this chapter takes place before Loki and Fandral's outing—probably the morning of, or the day before, or something. Just so no one's confused. **

When Thanos first arrives at the jail, just sixteen miles out of Manhattan, he almost wants to laugh at how utterly fucking _easy _the situation is. The police car pulls into the back, and Fandral opens the door, grabbing his shoulder.

"Out," he snarls, and Thanos does laugh then, a harsh, brittle, broken sound, maneuvering his legs and torso to gain a sense of balance even with his wrists handcuffed behind his back.

"My, my," he says as Fandral and two bodyguards lead him into the jail. "You certainly are eager to get justice for your friend's son, aren't you? Tell me, Fandral, is there something going on between you and Laufey that we don't know about?"

"Kindly go fuck yourself," is the response, and Thanos laughs some more as they roll his fingers—pinky to thumb—across the ink pad.

"You do get defensive for a Canadian," he murmurs, staring at Fandral with his eyelids lowered slightly. "There's really no need to bite my head off over a simple question—unless of course it's true?"

Fandral fucking _growls, _eyes narrowed, and Thanos amends, "Or were you more interested in the mother?"

Instead of answering, Fandral tightens his grip on Thanos' shoulder and pushes him down the hall, from the fingerprinting room to the room where his mug shot will be taken. An officer hands Thanos' prison uniform to Fandral, who then unlocks the handcuffs so Thanos can put it on. He eyes it for a moment with disgust, then sighs.

"You know, orange isn't my color," he says, but Fandral and the bodyguards just glare at him until he breathes out, sounding irritated, and starts stripping off his clothes. Catching Fandral's gaze traveling down his exposed, flat stomach as he pulls off his shirt, Thanos grins and removes the rest of his clothing more slowly, taking his time, maintaining eye contact with Fandral and watching with cold amusement as a low flush rises up on his cheeks. By the time he's gotten his jeans off and the prison uniform on, Fandral's looking away, staring at the opposite wall, an annoyed expression in his darkened eyes.

"You done yet?" he asks, voice tight, and Thanos shrugs.

"You want me to be?"

There's a tense silence, then Fandral grabs Thanos' arm and shoves him towards the opposite wall. "Get your mug shot done so we can lock you up."

"The 'rough' thing turns me on," Thanos comments, taking the numbered board and standing still while his pictures are snapped. After, they sit him down and have him fill out his admittance papers—_name: Thanos "Skurge", age: twenty-three, AIDS/HIV positive: no, suicidal: no. _Then he's led to a jail cell in medium security. There are already two people in his cell—a boisterous red-haired man who looks like he robs McDonald's for a living, and a sullen faced Asian man reading on the top bunk.

"See how well you like it in here," Fandral snarls, slamming the door shut.

"When do I get my phone call?" Thanos yells after him, the first really serious thing he's said since he got here, but Fandral's already gone.

Amora's face flashes through his mind, quick and beautiful like lightning, and he clenches his fist; slams it against the concrete wall.

/

And then it's been a week since Loki came home, and still nothing's changed between them—Tony's still going out and getting drunk off his ass, and Loki's staying in and studying to occupy his mind and forget everything else. Occasionally Fandral calls, and once Loki received a text from Laufey (_'how are you doing Loki xoxo'_), but for the most part he's isolated.

Just the way he likes.

On the morning of the seventh day that he's been back, Loki wakes up freezing despite his comforter, shivering under a heavy blast of cold air coming through the vents. At first he thinks it's Tony being an asshole and messing around with their central air system, but then the engineer comes downstairs, wearing sweatpants and an undershirt and rubbing his arms, teeth clenched.

"Jesus," he says, squinting against his hangover. "What the hell is going on?"

Loki frowns a little, standing up, keeping the blanket wrapped firmly around his shoulders. "Do I look like I'm psychic, Stark?"

Tony shoots him a _look_, walking towards the thermostat. "Just thinking out loud," he snarls. "Fucking _Christ._" He touches the buttons on the device, examining the temperature, his frown deepening. "Heat's broken," he says finally, turning the thermostat off and dropping to the ground, passing his fingers through his hair. Loki shivers involuntarily, breathing out slow, thinking of how cold it's going to get.

"I'm calling Dad," Tony says finally, standing up again.

"What good is that going to do?" Loki snaps, voice tight against the cold.

"Uh, let's think about the fact that maybe he's paying the bills—"

"_Even if Howard knows a heating company to call, _they won't be able to come fix the system for several days." Loki folds his arms across his chest and glares at Tony, who pretty much ignores him for ten seconds before sighing exaggeratedly and saying:

"_Fine,_" dragging out the 'i' and baring his teeth. He glances at the clock over the television set. "Aren't you going to be late for class or something?"

"Since when do you care about my education?" Loki asks, bristling, but he goes upstairs anyway, gets his clothes out of the closet in Tony's room—he still keeps them in there and won't talk about _why, _not to anyone, not even to himself—and changes in the bathroom, staring at his hollow reflection in the mirror. He pulls a sweatshirt over his thin frame and makes a face when the cotton brushes his rope burns.

In the kitchen, Tony is making a grilled cheese sandwich and biting into an apple while he waits, the juice dribbling down his chin. Loki watches, shoving his books into his knapsack and dropping his cell phone into the back pocket of his jeans. For a few seconds he and Tony just stare at each other, and it's admittedly weird, but in a sad way, and part of Loki wants to cry.

"See you," he says finally, swallowing around the tenseness of his shivering, and nearly runs out. Thor is waiting in his car outside with Jane, as he's been doing for the past week, and Loki gets in, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Father called last night," Thor says as they drive towards the university. "He wanted to let you know that Laufey and Farbauti are interested in having dinner with you."

"Oh," says Loki, frowning at his hands. "Why?"

Thor shrugs. "I don't know; they want to get to know you, I suppose. You should go, Loki. It would be good for you."

Loki does this thing where he shrugs and acquiesces at the same time, and Thor nods. "Call Father's number," he says. "Laufey and Farbauti are still staying there."

"Okay," Loki murmurs.

There's another, slightly stretched silence, during which Thor shifts in his seat and narrows his eyes at the road, his jaw set. Loki clears his throat, zipping and unzipping a compartment on his knapsack.

"You want to say something," he prompts at length, and Thor makes an apologetic face.

"I just," he starts. "I believe you and Anthony should speak, brother."

Loki makes a disapproving sound low in his throat, and Thor passes a hand over his eyes. "Anthony tried hard to find you while you were gone," he says. "He searched for you; he was so on edge, Loki, so serious. He worried for you—"

"He also nearly died and refused to tell me," Loki interrupts, nearly spitting the words, and it's evident from the way Thor's back goes rigid that he hadn't known either. "His electromagnet was poisoning him with its iron fillings, and he knew for _much _longer than the time I was with Thanos—and he hid it from me. Do you honestly think I'm going to forgive him for that, Thor? I will not speak to Anthony Stark about _anything _until he's on his knees _begging _for my attention." Loki stares out the window, at the trees passing by.

"Oh," Thor says, quiet for once, unsure of what to say. He pulls up by the building Loki's class is in, and Loki opens his door and gets out of the car. He's shaking again, face drawn with anger.

"Yes, exactly" Loki says, and he walks away.

It isn't until he's halfway through with his third and final class of the day that he realizes he has no way of getting to the restaurant Laufey suggested over the phone unless he asks someone for a ride. He refuses to ask his biological parents—_in college, having your mom and dad pick you up for dinner, how __**quaint**_—and when he calls Thor he is informed that Thor is 'otherwise occupied later', which Loki translates immediately as, 'I'm going to have sex with Jane', which is _disgusting_.

And Loki doesn't have any other friends anymore, not really, no one close enough, no one who knows about Laufey, and Fandral's back in Canada with Sif for a bit, so, begrudgingly, he calls Tony.

"Come pick me up from the library at seven-thirty," is all he says, pride wounded over having to ask his nearly-ex-boyfriend for a favor, and Tony mumbles something in a semi-agreeing tone, and then _thank god _the conversation is over.

If Loki really thinks about it, he finds it incredibly depressing that he can't stand more than five minutes of talking to Tony now, but he doesn't want to think about that. Not right now. The fact that hearing Tony's voice sends knife-sharp edges of irritation slashing up his spine is probably a sign that either a permanent breakup or a temporary separation is impending, and Loki's not entirely sure if he's ready for either of those just yet.

_Talk to him, _Thor's voice echoes in Loki's head, and he ignores it, walking to the reference section of the library and picking out books on astronomy and logistics and one on calculus and losing himself in the chaotic precision of arithmetic and space for two hours. At seven twenty-five, he goes to the front entrance, and Tony's car is already waiting there, idling in the street. His music, Disturbed or Avenged Sevenfold or one of those types of loud-as-fuck bands, is blasting through his closed windows, and people are staring, laughing when they see who it is, and walking on.

Loki gets in the passenger's seat, placing his booksack on his lap and wincing at the decibel level. Tony turns the radio down maybe two notches before driving off, knuckles white against the steering wheel.

"You need to get a new car," he says. "I'm not becoming your personal chauffeur."

_I was stuck in the woods with Thanos and Amora for ten days, _Loki wants to say. _It's not my fault my car's probably ended up in a ditch somewhere gathering water and branches and god knows what else. _But he keeps his mouth shut, fists clenching and unclenching against the soft material of his hoodie, and the silence is deafening between them.

They arrive at the restaurant and Tony lets Loki out, his mouth twisted in a sneer. "I'm not coming to pick you up," he says. "So make sure Laufey's got the time to drop you off."

"I wouldn't ride back with you anyway," Loki snaps, slamming the car door shut and shifting his booksack on his shoulders. Tony drives off, his music coming out too loud again, and Loki sucks in a deep breath before walking inside. Laufey and Farbauti are already sitting at a booth near the front, all tall grace and elegance, pale skin and dark hair, so like their son, and Loki feels a pang of nostalgia for something he doesn't even remember as he walks towards them.

"Loki, hello," says Laufey, moving over so Loki can sit down beside him. Farbauti smiles at him beneath tired eyes, brushing a loose lock of hair from her forehead before reaching across the table to clasp his hands briefly in hers.

"My son," she breathes out, and Loki shifts, uncomfortable, looking between them.

"How have you been holding up since we last spoke?" Laufey asks.

"I've been—" and then he pauses, because he's not sure what to say to them, if he should tell them about the nightmares, how he wakes up shaking and sweating, the taste of Thanos still on his lips; if he should mention Tony, and the way he can't even look at him now, the way they are strangers who happen to know every inch of each other's bodies; if he should try and tell Laufey about Fandral, and how they've been communicating.

"Okay," he finishes after a few seconds, and Laufey nods, smiling, clasping Loki's shoulder.

"Glad to hear it," he says, and Loki wants to ask why Laufey's suddenly so interested in being a father to the son he's ignored for the past twenty-three years, why it took a kidnapping to get him to show up, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Then Farbauti clears her throat, and Laufey raises his eyebrows, shifting a little. "Oh, Loki," he says, like he's just remembered. "I know from Odin that you had a car, but… it's gone now?"

"Um," says Loki, because how does Odin know, and then he thinks, _Thor, _and he's not sure if he wants to kill or hug his brother for speaking up on his behalf. "Yes, I lost it; Thanos—took it."

Laufey nods. "Well, I'd like to—I mean, your mother and I would like to provide you with a new car. If that's all right with you."

Loki wants to know what Odin thinks of this; wants to know what kind of job Laufey has, that he can just hand his biological son a new car _like that, _but what comes out of his mouth is, "That would be fine, thank you," and Laufey's smile cranks up another couple hundred watts.

"Glad to hear it," he says again, his default response, and calls a waiter over to order drinks and appetizers.

Across the table, Farbauti sends Loki another one of her small, sad smiles, and he finds himself wondering fleetingly how much say she had in the idea of giving the son she barely knew a fucking _motor vehicle. _

He feels like if he looked, he'd find bruises on her wrists, her covered arms.

/

After he drops Loki off at the restaurant, Tony drives aimlessly, unwilling to go back to the apartment yet, where all he'll get accomplished is (maybe) two physics problems before his fingers go fucking numb and he's forced to call it a night and drown himself in alcohol. He considers dropping by the dorms at Berkeley, visiting Rhodey or Bruce, but decides against it, because he doesn't need to get _preached _at tonight, not when he's already feeling like shit.

He _misses _Loki, fuck. It's like he hasn't seen him in years, and he craves that pale skin, those piercingly green eyes, like glittering emeralds. He curls his fingers against his electromagnet, hating it, hating the glow and the hum and the soft vibrations he feels against his heart when he gets too angry or too excited.

Really, Tony hates _himself, _for not telling Loki when he should have, for not making more of an effort to find him when he was gone.

He ends up driving to a bar called Shangri-La, which is essentially a slightly more sophisticated version of Valhalla, with better music and less of a shady atmosphere. The parking lot casts a fluorescent glow over his skin as he shuts off his car and walks inside, and he watches all the hairs on the back of his arm stand up in the cold. The security guard barely glances at his card as he walks in, and he heads immediately for the bar. Tony orders a drink and pulls a cigarette out of his back pocket, flicking on his lighter and pressing the flame to the end of the stick as the bartender slides his glass across the glossy surface. Gray smoke curls around his head, and the sharp scent of nicotine rides up his nostrils as the taste fills his throat, giving the alcohol an odd, almost tangy flavor.

He's on his third glass when he hears a voice calling his name and turns to see Pepper Potts walking towards him, and he has to blink a few times to be sure it's really her because what in the actual _fuck _is she doing here. He hasn't seen her since some time in their junior year, when they were all at a frat party together and he was making out with Loki in some deserted corner and she walked by and fucking _interrupted _them. The sight of her fills him with some strange emotion now, a mixture of annoyance and nostalgia, and he offers her his usual half-smile.

"Tony!" she screams, her voice shrill enough to splinter glass, and he winces—_the music's not that loud, babe, come on. _"I thought I recognized you! How have you been?"

He clears his throat, tosses back another swallow of alcohol. "Just terrific," he says, and he means it to come out sarcastic but she just laughs, her red hair swinging across her bare back.

Silence stretches heavy and awkward between them before she looks over her shoulder at a group of people Tony doesn't recognize. "I'm here with these people," she says, sounding almost apologetic. "So I have to go. But um… if you want, we can meet up later? Talk? We need to catch up, Tony." She leans in, her body brushing his, and whispers, lips brushing his ear, "My number's the same." And then she's walking off, and he swallows, watching her stretch her long legs over her seat again, leaning over the table and laughing at something someone's said, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

Tony finishes his drink, slaps down sixty dollars, and walks out, his head pounding with the music. He remembers the way she felt underneath him, all soft curves and long, luxurious hair, and hates himself for remembering.

He cannot remember her number, but he knows how to find it again.

/

The apartment is still freezing by the time Tony returns and unlocks the door, his fingers shaking. Loki is curled up on the sofa, already back from the dinner with his parents, his eyes halfway open and glued to the television screen. He's shivering and won't look up at Tony until the physicist is standing over him, arms folded across his chest.

"What," Loki says flatly.

Tony reaches down and grabs the edge of the comforter; tugs. Loki makes an angry protesting noise in his throat, sitting up and glaring at him. "_Give,_" he demands, and Tony shakes his head.

"Come on," he says, staring for the stairs.

Loki crosses his legs Indian-style on the sofa and shakes his head. "As if I would fall for your tricks, Stark," he says.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Tony exasperatedly runs his fingers through his hair. "Look, it's about twenty-five degrees outside and not much warmer in here, so just _come the fuck upstairs, _would you?"

Loki makes a pained face, and Tony does not miss the brief flash of want that crosses his features. He gentles his tone slightly, holding out his hand. "Come on," he repeats. "It'll be easier to sleep if we're sharing a mattress."

There's a pause, then Loki unfolds his long, long legs out from underneath him and stands, walking to the stairs. He glances back at Tony once, eyes narrowed, states flatly, "If you try and fuck me I swear to god—"

"_Go,_" Tony says, and Loki goes. The room—_their _room, still, technically—smells of Tony; of motor oil and cigarettes and leather and alcohol and chemicals, and Loki pauses for three-point-four seconds to breathe in the scent he's missed more than anything else in the world before heading over to the bed and laying down, facing the wall. Tony crawls in behind him, draping first his sheets and then Loki's comforter over them, and flicking out the light by the bed.

"Goodnight, Shake—Loki."

"Goodnight, Stark," Loki murmurs, knowing better than to point out the slipup.

Half an hour later, Loki rolls over and faces Tony, whose figure is awash in the moonlight streaming in through the window. Despite their abundant coverings, Tony is still shaking, every muscle in his body tensed up with the effort of keeping him warm. Loki breathes out a soft sigh and wraps himself around Tony, all lean muscle and lithe grace. His skin is not warm by nature, but he's also never felt the cold as easily as Tony seems to.

Almost instantly Tony's body relaxes, and he moves, snuggling closer to Loki, breathing out. Loki presses his nose against the side of Tony's neck, readjusting his arm around the older man's chest so that it's not digging into the electromagnet, and they fall asleep like that, a tangle of limbs and hair beneath the sheets.

**A/N: If you made it through this chapter – congratulations! I promise it'll get better, I just kind of had a brain freeze here. **

**Have a cookie, seriously. **


	20. Guess We'll Just Have to Adjust

Tony's mouth is stale when he wakes up, tasting of alcohol residue and a faint hint of iron in the back of his throat. He shivers a little against the cold, gritting his teeth before reaching for his phone. There is one message from Howard—_'I'll get to it when I can, Anthony, but I'm very busy right now'_—and Tony lets out a soft, exasperated sigh before switching his phone back off and sitting up.

Loki isn't next to him anymore; just a soft indentation where his body was, curled like a comma, and the lightly rumpled sheets. For a second Tony thinks he's gone to class already—and it would be typical of Loki to just go off without saying anything, the bastard—but then he hears the telltale sounds of the shower running, and a small smile forms on his lips. Standing, he tugs on a sweatshirt draped across the bedside table and heads out, padding across the cold wooden floor of the hallway until he reaches the bathroom. The door is shut but not locked, and Tony pushes it open, blinking against the steam that rises up to meet him. It's the only warm room in the house, and he revels in it, shutting the door again and lifting his sweatshirt to watch the moisture condense on his electromagnet.

He doesn't realize Loki's watching him until he looks up and sees the younger man blinking, his hair hanging wet around his shoulders, body lithe and pale and soaked. Tony gives him a raised eyebrow and a half smile that he barely returns before closing the curtain again and resuming his shower.

"It's like a sauna in here," Tony comments after a while, because he can't keep his mouth shut and he hates silence and anyway it's _boring, _just spraying Barbasol across his jaw by himself.

"You know I like to shower hot," Loki says back.

"Yeah." Tony pauses, thinking of last night, the way Loki curved around him, so easy, like there's nothing going on between them. He doesn't know if he should push, but. He's Tony Stark, it's what he does, it's how he's always been, and so he continues:

"You could let me join. Like old times."

Loki stays silent this time, and Tony sighs, scraping the razor across his cheek, removing stubble. He watches Loki's form move through the curtain in the mirror, and as he's finishing up his shaving Loki turns the water off and steps out, body like a fucking model, or maybe a god.

"Take that off," Loki says, pulling at the sleeve of Tony's jacket as he reaches with his other hand for a towel. "How can you stand that in here?"

Tony shrugs, slipping his razor and shaving cream back in the cabinet and shutting the door. He turns to face Loki, who is now dripping wet onto the floor, and for a few seconds they just stare at each other, hungry and wanting and _Jesus, _but Tony's about five seconds away from taking Loki against the wall right now, irrational fighting be damned.

And then Tony sees it, a scar, just above Loki's towel, red and raised on his skin, hooked along the line of his hipbone. It's a little jagged, the way scars are cut when they don't have a chance to heal properly, and he instinctively leans forward, his hand outstretched. "Loki," he starts, and immediately Loki looks down, following Tony's gaze. He steps backwards before Tony can touch him, his pale cheeks flushed, eyes narrowed.

"Where's that from?" Tony asks, and it's probably the stupidest question he could ask because _honestly_. Where _else _could it be from?

Loki takes a deep, shuddering breath. He looks at the center of Tony's chest, then back up at his face, and there's something in his eyes like desperation before he's fumbling for the doorknob behind him. "Don't," he says, voice low, and he backs out of the bathroom. Tony slams his fist down on the tile of the counter before following him out.

Their bedroom door is locked by the time he gets there, and he pounds on it incessantly, resting his forehead against the wood. "Listen, Loki," he calls. "Just let me in, okay?"

There is no answer, just the soft sound of movement as Loki rustles through his clothes and dries himself off, and Tony runs his fingers through his hair, frustrated.

"Why didn't you tell me about Thanos?" he asks abruptly, because they're already mad enough at each other and why should he try and placate Loki when Loki clearly does not want to be placated.

More quiet, and then the lock clicks and Loki steps out, wearing a thin gray sweatshirt and dark jeans that hug his legs. "I did not need your help," he says, hair hanging around his shoulders, still wet. "I thought I could do everything myself."

"Oh yeah," says Tony sarcastically, without thinking, "and we all see how well _that _turned out."

In a flash Loki has him pressed against the wall, fingers curling around his neck. His eyes blaze with anger, lips forming an animalistic snarl. "It would do well for you to remember that you _refused _to tell me you were dying." His cheeks are flushed high and hot, and Tony can see the rapid pulse in his neck as they stare each other down. For a second, he thinks Loki's going to hit him, and he flinches backwards a little in preparation, wondering how badly they're going to fuck up the walls if they end up getting into a physical fight, but then Loki drops his hand, stepping backwards. The look in his eyes has downshifted from anger to something else, something on the threshold of hatred.

Tony sucks in a deep breath. "Hey, I was going to tell you," he says, half defensively, raising his voice as Loki heads downstairs. "I was going to get a meal and some music and we were going to sit down properly at the kitchen table and I was going to break it to you—"

But Loki's already slamming the door shut, and Tony ends up punching the wall, bruising his knuckles and screaming _goddammit _until his vocal cords feel like they've been ripped from his throat.

/

It isn't as if their fight changes anything—Loki doesn't suddenly decide to take Thor's advice and Tony doesn't decide that maybe his ego could use a break after all—but they also don't stop sleeping together. Loki won't wrap himself around Tony anymore, not after that first night, so they sleep back-to-back, spines curving against each other, arms folded under the sheets. Howard keeps saying he's going to send some men over to fix the heating system, but Tony's willing to bet all of the money he withdrew for Loki's ransom that it's not going to get fixed before they go on spring break.

He makes himself wait three full days before calling Pepper. He gets her number from that new friend of his, Happy, who apparently knew her in high school, and stands around in the kitchen, one hand wrapped around the half-empty bottle of Ranch Dressing, the other shaking a little as he dials the digits with his thumb.

The phone rings and rings, and eventually she picks up, sounding tired. "Hello?" she says, and he sets the dressing down, crossing one ankle behind the other and leaning back against the sink.

"Vir_ginia,_" he drawls, because he knows how much she hates her given name, and she gasps a little.

"I should've never gotten drunk enough to tell you that's what's on my birth certificate," she says, and they both laugh.

"Hello, Pepper," he says, eventually.

"Hello, Tony."

"Are you still wanting to meet up for champagne and caviar and fucking crackers?"

"If you can meet me at the Greek restaurant down the street in fifteen minutes."

"Great." He hangs up, tossing his phone into his back pocket and grabbing his keys. Loki's out somewhere, like he usually is these days, trying to avoid Tony as much as possible by staying at the library until it closes, or with Thor and Jane, and Tony doesn't bother leaving a note before heading out and locking the door behind him. The drive to the restaurant is short and Tony parks next to a silver Audi. The night air is cold against his arms, and he wishes he'd put on some warmer clothes.

Pepper is waiting for him by the door, wearing a red dress, her hair pulled back into a high bun, makeup actually glittering over her eyes. She smiles when she sees him and he holds out his arm, letting her press her fingers into the crook of his elbow as they walk in together.

Once they are seated, Pepper leans forward and says, a little too loudly, "So how have you been, Tony? We haven't seen each other since… oh god… since that party junior year, am I right?"

"Right, yeah," says Tony, and he doesn't mean for his snark to come out so early but he's irritated and tired and not really thinking, so he continues, "when you walked up to me while I was preoccupied with Loki and tapped me on the shoulder like saying 'hi' was so important."

She frowns. "Yes," she says. "Well. I was drunk, you know."

"Yeah, and I was stone-cold sober, right," Tony counters, grateful when the waiter arrives a second later with their drinks, just so he can press his mouth around the glass and have an excuse not to talk for a bit.

The speakers above them are filled with the strumming of some Greek instrumentals, but the silence between them is too loud and she presses on, "I've been okay, myself, really. Just got myself a place this semester—it's near here, kind of; it's nice."

"Yeah, we have an apartment too," he says, thinking of it now, the messy papers scattered over the coffee table, the half-full refrigerator, the bathroom with Loki's things on one side and Tony's things on the other. It doesn't make sense to him, how they can be so angry at each other and yet still so domesticated, and he doesn't hear Pepper's next question until she's nearly screaming it in his ear:

"Would 'we' still be you and Loki?"

He gives her this look like _no shit, _and a tiny, sad smile flits across her face. "I'm surprised you guys have lasted this long," she says, and there's no malice in her voice, but he still tenses.

"So am I," he says, and takes another sip of his drink.

He keeps expecting her to make a move on him, hoping to god he won't have to be the one to instigate the inevitable encounter tonight because let's be honest here, Tony hasn't been interested in sex with anyone aside from Loki for _years_. But they keep doing the small talk thing, eating and drinking like they're old friends, and he notices there's something _different _about her now. She's still too loud and too over-the-top and too _everything _for him, but she's matured, and he says it to her, "You've matured, Pepper," and she laughs.

"Hardly," she says, but she seems pleased.

They're about three-fourths of the way through with their meal when she asks the inevitable, "So how are you and Loki doing?" and he tries to skirt his way around answering because she's kind of been hinting at the question all night and he's been avoiding it, but she won't let him, so finally he takes a long drink, sets his glass down, and steeples his fingers.

"We've been fighting."

"I'm not surprised—"

"There was a valid reason this time." Tony stares at Pepper, and she tilts her head, curious, so he goes on:

"I got iron poisoning from the electromagnet, and I knew about it for a long time but never told him, not for six months. Guess I thought I could keep it a secret and get it healed and come and say, 'Hey, by the way, I was dying but I'm better now,' except then he kind of got kidnapped—"

"What."

"Yeah, by Thanos—remember him? Thanos took him and they were gone for ten days, him and Loki and some chick, so I never had a chance to tell him about my electromagnet. Do you wanna know how he found out?"

"Sure."

"Thor. Fucking _Thor _told him I'd been dying while he'd been with Thanos." Tony stabs at some leftover food with his fork. "So I'm in the hospital, having surgery, and Loki's off in Canada, and neither of us have any idea where the other is—and then I get out and he comes back and we both find out from people _other than each other _what's been going on, and do you realize how awkward that is, because it's seriously the worst thing that's happened to me in ever."

Pepper bites her lower lip. "Have you talked to him? I mean, I don't—I don't understand, Tony, why are you fighting, I'd think you'd be happy to see each other alive and—"

"No, because Loki's pissed at me for not telling him I was dying, and I'm pissed at him for not telling me about Thanos coming back to Manhattan." Tony says it fast, like he's ripping off a Band-Aid, and Pepper's frown deepens. She sets her wine glass to the side and, reaching across the table, takes Tony's hand in hers.

"Look, can I say something? I never told you this, but um. While we were together, y'know, in freshman year and whatever, I saw you look at Loki sometimes. Or you'd talk about him when you were shitfaced. And I swear to god, Tony, you have _never _looked like that when you're thinking about anyone other than him. It's like… it's like you're an orchestra conductor. And he's your main violinist. And he's playing every single piece brilliantly, perfectly, and your night is going fantastically, the audience is captivated, everyone's on their feet doing a standing ovation, and there's a whole orchestra you're controlling but Loki's the only one you see. Or think about. Or care about. Or whatever." She takes a deep breath. "That's kind of how you look and talk and act when you're thinking about him, that's all I'm saying. And after you got back together? Tony, you looked so _happy_. You weren't ever that happy with me."

It's the most, really, that he's ever heard her say in one sitting, and he's still trying to process the whole thing when she finishes, "Please don't throw that away, okay? Please, Tony. Talk to him. Promise me you'll talk to him."

He gives her a shaky smile and a small, "I promise," and then she smiles back and glances at her watch and says she has to go, and stands, tottering out on high heels and the tiniest bit of alcohol in her bloodstream.

He doesn't understand why his eyes are watering.

/

Over the course of the next month, Loki and Tony find themselves growing apart, but also growing closer, in a way that neither of them really understands. Tony spends most of his time with his friends, at bars, a cigarette dangling between his lips, eyes on everyone, all the time, restless. He doesn't cheat, not even with Pepper, although after their initial meeting she tries to coerce him into staying at her place, and he wonders why she gave him all that advice about Loki if she still only wants in his pants.

But he's _bored, _and he lets Rhodey talk him into going to a strip club one night, leaving his physics homework for when he returns to the apartment at five in the morning, smelling of cheap powder and marijuana and sweat, and it's the one night he doesn't sleep beside Loki.

Which is another thing—they're still sleeping together. Howard fixes the heat within a week after it breaks, surprising Tony completely, but that night as Tony's lying half asleep in his bed he becomes vaguely aware that Loki is standing in the doorway, uncertain, and he lifts the sheets and moves closer to the wall, and Loki crawls in beside him, dark hair spanning over the pillow. They still lay spine against spine, Loki's slow even breathing lulling Tony to sleep, but it's enough. Even when they've fought—and they fight, every day, if they happen to be in the apartment at the same time, both awake—they still sleep in the same bed at night, the only time they can be in the same room without wanting to rip each other's heads off.

Loki spends most of his time by himself—when he's not with Thor, who sometimes forces his brother to come to he and Jane's apartment for dinner; or with Tony, curled up on the mattress beside him, his presence and the solid, warm weight of him the only thing keeping Loki from going over the brink of insanity. He likes it that way, likes the solitude, being alone with his thoughts.

(Except for when he thinks about Thanos, which he does ninety-five percent of the time, but Loki figures it'll get okay. Soon.)

The only person he talks to other than Thor and Tony—and Laufey, although they've really only spoken once since the dinner date, and that was when Loki received his new car—is Fandral. The police officer spends his time fluctuating between Toronto and Manhattan, between checking up on Sif and checking up on Loki. They text a lot, usually while Loki's in his more boring classes or at lunch, and he's finding that Fandral's a good guy, a nice distraction from the fact that there's a rift worthy of _Doctor Who _in the apartment, between he and Tony, and it's getting larger every day.

The best part, though—and Loki's not admitting this to himself consciously—is that Fandral doesn't talk about Tony. He _knows _about him, of course, but he never says _talk to him _the way Thor does, and it's a nice change, to be with a person who isn't constantly on him about 'making things right'.

Except Loki hates himself for not doing anything about he and Tony's eternally fucked-up relationship. Sometimes, when he's lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling with Tony beside him, he thinks about shaking the older man awake and having a discussion with him about everything that's gone on—Thanos, Amora, the electromagnet—but he can't make himself do it. He's too proud to make the first move, too

(_ashamed_)

afraid of what Tony's reaction will be when he finds out that Loki _let _himself get raped again, _let _himself get kidnapped.

Those nights he shakes like the heat's still broken, and ends up curling against Tony, and having to wake himself up before seven so that he can be out of the apartment before his sort-of boyfriend discovers that yes, he _does_ still crave physical contact between them.

One afternoon, in early March, when the air's gone a little warmer and it's not so hellish to go outside after class, Loki is sitting in the quad with Thor, just the two of them, just brothers who are still sort of getting to know each other. Thor is talking animatedly about something he's doing with Jane, and Loki is half listening and half watching Tony, who is getting into his car with Bruce and Rhodey and is laughing at something that's just been said, his throat exposed as he throws his head back. For a second, Loki feels a pang of longing in his chest, and is about two seconds away from telling his vanity to go fuck itself and just walking over to Tony and kissing him in front of god and everyone, when suddenly his cell phone rings, and it's Fandral. He holds up one long, elegant finger to Thor, and presses the phone to his ear.

"Hey, love," he says to Fandral, because they call each other that, and it doesn't change the fact that Fandral knows Loki's off limits, and Loki doesn't ever think about what Fandral might look like with his clothes off, skin slick with sweat, lips parted and reddened—

"Hello, hello, hello," Fandral replies, and Loki can hear his smile. "How are you?"

"Better now that you've called," Loki quips, and laughs when Thor glares at him.

Fandral chuckles too, low in his throat. "Always glad to hear that." He pauses for a second, and Loki can hear him shuffling around. Then:

"So listen, I'm coming down to Manhattan this evening, and I'll be staying for a few days because of some stuff at the jail I have to take care of, and I was wondering—do you want to get together tonight? We could catch a movie or go for a drive or whatever you like, really." There's a hopeful note in his voice, and it's different than the way he usually sounds when he's inviting Loki on a date, and the younger man feels his heart speeding up.

"Sure," he says. "I can meet you at the theater at eight or so, if you want."

"Sounds great," says Fandral, and they hang up.

Thor is frowning a little when Loki puts his phone in his pocket. "Who was that, brother?"

"Fandral—you know, that guy I told you about. Laufey's friend."

"Oh, yes." Thor hesitates, staring off into the distance, then says, "Isn't he rather old, Loki?"

For some reason the comment irks Loki more when someone else says it, and he snaps, a bit more vicious than he means to, "It's my business who I date, _Thor, _isn't it? It's _my _body, after all."

Thor shifts his thumbs over each other, clumsily, a dull red flush creeping onto his cheeks. "I just would make sure you're going to be careful with this Fandral, brother. Remember what has happened in the past." Then he stands, pulling out his car keys and forcing a smile on his face. "This has been most enjoyable, but I must go now. I hope you enjoy your—date," and he turns and walks off, and Loki waits until he's out of earshot before murmuring:

"Yes, brother… so do I."

**A/N: Moving too fast? Too slow? What do you guys think?**

**Also, it should be over soon, although I don't have any solid plans yet as to what else is going to happen. **


	21. Force from the World a Patient Smile

Loki arrives at the theater ten minutes early and spends most of his time standing around, biting his lower lip, tugging on the loose skin there—he's heard that's a precursor to anxiety disorders, and wouldn't that just take the cake, if he were to find out that he has one of those on top of everything else—his hands shoved in his pockets. His cell phone rings once and it's Tony, and he hesitates before sliding his thumb over the ignore button, then turning the phone all the way off. Why the hell should Stark care where he is now when he hasn't cared in almost two months?

When Fandral arrives, Loki cannot keep the smile from snaking onto his face, and he pulls his hands out of his pockets and walks forward to greet the man. Fandral is dressed, inexplicably, in a suit and tie, and Loki smiles questioningly as he reaches down and takes his hand.

"Just got out of a dinner with your dad," Fandral explains, gesturing at his clothes. "I'm not one of those freaks who dresses up nice to every damn thing he attends."

Loki laughs, noticing the curve of Fandral's palm against his, the warmth of his skin despite the cool air. "You know Barney Stinson from _How I Met Your Mother_? He does that."

"Oh, please, don't compare me to him." Fandral laughs too, pulling out his wallet. "I'm not a horndog like he is."

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Did you really just use the term 'horndog'."

"They say it in _Armageddon_; it's perfectly acceptable."

"That's _Rockhound, _love." Loki lightly nudges Fandral's shoulder with his, and they're still laughing when they get to the ticket counter and ask for tickets to see _Les Misérables. _Fandral offers to pay for both of them—'_it's a date, it's appropriate, come on_'—and Loki is starting to think everything's going to go okay tonight when they go inside and he sees Justin Hammer working behind the food area.

"Shit," he says, and tries to get out of Justin's line of sight, but he sees him and calls his name, a huge smile on his face like none of January happened, like he didn't have to witness Loki and Thanos crawling out of the woods together with their clothes rumpled and their skin all cut up and that demonic expression in Thanos' eyes.

"Loki!" Justin says again, and Fandral sends him a questioning look.

"You know this guy?" he asks, and Loki breathes out a sigh and mutters something about how he can't get away from it, no matter how hard he tries. They walk over to the cash register and Justin leans across the grease-stained counter, head propped up between his hands.

"Well, this is a surprise," he says, eyes flickering between Loki and Fandral, something like a sneer twisting his lips. "I'd have expected to see you here with Tony—_maybe. _But who's this? Don't tell me you've given up on each other already?"

Something akin to rage fills Loki's chest and it's all he can do to keep himself from diving across the counter and strangling Justin with his bare hands. "It's none of your business," he snarls, digging his fingernails into Fandral's palm and barely noticing the older man wince. "You fucking two-faced little shit."

"Watch your language, Laufeyson," Justin says mockingly. "And chill, man. It was just a question, okay?"

"Yes, well, Stark and I are not _bound _to one another," Loki says, gritting his teeth together and focusing his gaze somewhere over Justin's left shoulder. "As pleasant as this has been to see you, I believe we must be going on now." He turns and nearly drags Fandral away from Justin, his cheeks flushed an angry shade of red, ignoring the bemused expression on the other man's face. They hand in their tickets and go into the theater, sitting near the top row, in the middle. Loki is quiet for a long time, staring down at his hands in the dim light, half listening to the commercials for Coca-Cola and the latest MTV "reality" show. He hates Justin for working here, for ruining his evening with Fandral—but in truth, more than anything, he hates himself for what he's doing, what he's hoping Fandral has planned for them this night. Part of him wants this, what's set before him now, but part of him wants to say _fuck it _and walk out, go back to the apartment and uncharacteristically be the first to say _sorry_. He misses Tony, aches for him in a way he cannot quite put into words, and finds it harder and harder each day to get up before Tony's awake, to walk down the hall and shower and be out of the apartment before the clock strikes eight a.m.

_You shouldn't punish him for what happened; it was not Tony who allowed you to get kidnapped, _he thinks, and then, in a suddenly savage desperation to forget Stark and everything associated with him, he turns to Fandral and asks, dialing his already low voice down about half an octave:

"What are we doing after the movie?"

Fandral glances over at him with an expression in his eyes that is part curiosity, part lust. "It's really up to you," he says. "You're the one who lives here; you tell me if there's anything to do for an old man after dark."

Loki grins, feeling his control slipping away and not exactly caring. "Oh yes," he murmurs, tracing his long fingers over Fandral's arm, feeling the hard muscles just below the surface of his skin. "There is." He watches Fandral's throat constrict as he swallows, eyes going dark, and he sits back again, feeling oddly like he's going to win something.

Ten minutes into the movie and they are making out like a couple of horny teenagers, and Loki (hardly) cares that he is missing one of his favorite musicals of all time in favor of having Fandral's tongue sliding against his. Fandral runs his hand across Loki's chest, and he whispers against his lips, "Your heart is pounding, love," and Loki swallows, pressing his forehead against Fandral's and breathing in deeply.

"Shall we go?" he asks quietly, and Fandral nods, and they get up, shuffling past irritated patrons until they get to the aisle. They head down the stairs and are out before "Valjean's Soliloquy" begins.

Though both men have brought their cars to the theater, they leave in Fandral's, because it's closer and because it will be easier for Fandral to drop Loki off for his vehicle in the morning than vice versa, especially if Fandral is called back to Toronto unexpectedly during the night. They head uptown to a Doubletree Inn and Fandral hands in his credit card. Loki quietly offers to pay for his half and Fandral declines before Loki has even completed his sentence. The desk clerk hands them their keys and the usual complimentary chocolate chip cookies, and they head up in the elevator.

Loki's heart is still racing like a fucking rabbit, and he fumbles with his key before managing to fit it in the electronic slot of the door handle. They are barely inside their room before Fandral is kissing Loki, harder than before, moving his mouth fast, heatedly. They move to the bed and sit on the edge, and Loki sets his cookie down on the mattress, freeing his hands to rest on Fandral's jaw. He strokes his skin lightly with his thumb, pressing feather light kisses to Fandral's lips, and Fandral lets his hand rest on Loki's thigh, tilting his head from one side to the other, his fingers trailing down Loki's neck.

Loki does not realize how much he is trembling until Fandral pulls back and locks their eyes together, concern lacing with lust. "You okay?" he asks softly.

Thanos' face flashes through Loki's mind, the way he used to touch Loki like this, and he tries to push it out of his head but it won't go. "I am cursed," he murmurs, without thinking, and Fandral raises his eyebrows.

"Cursed?" he repeats, and it occurs to Loki, then, that this is never going to go away, this feeling like Thanos is _right there, _just waiting for his next move. He imagines the rest of his life before him—a series of quick, empty fucks in hotel rooms, all of them tainted by the memory of Thanos and what he did—and he allows a quick, harsh laugh to escape his lips before shaking his head and reaching behind him for his cookie.

"It matters not," he says, and he takes a bite of the cookie. Chocolate smears across his mouth, and his tongue flicks out to catch it before Fandral is leaning in and kissing it off himself, as Loki had intended.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur to Loki, though he can't say it's not enjoyable. Fandral bites his collarbone and his chest, sucking at the skin there, and Loki smiles when he thinks of the inevitable bruises. He hooks his legs around Fandral's waist, pulling him closer by tugging on his shoulders, and Fandral has to perform some sort of acrobatic feat in order to get the lubricant out of his jeans, because he won't stop kissing Loki and Loki won't really let him go.

(Somewhere in the back of his mind, Loki wonders why the hell Fandral brought lube, like he was _assuming _this is where they'd end up tonight, but he can't quite bring himself to care.)

Once Loki is loose and Fandral is slicked up, he pushes in, slow, feeling Loki's muscles tensing up as he tries to take him, the first man he's had since Thanos. It's not comfortable, not at first, but Loki refuses to complain, just lets his head fall to the side, biting his lower lip, eyes shut, breathing coming fast and hard. Fandral won't move again until Loki opens his eyes and nods, and then he thrusts carefully, like he's afraid he'll tear Loki apart from the inside. The younger man wraps his arms around Fandral's shoulders, digging his heels into the small of his back, quiet sounds tearing from the back of his throat. He presses his face against Fandral's skin, pushing up against him with his hips, urging him to go faster although he won't, not really. Loki can feel Fandral's desperation underneath his hesitant movements, and eventually he flips them, because _why the hell not, _and rocks himself over the older man, driving him against the mattress, feeling the friction of their hot skin. Fandral grips his hips with shaking fingers and Loki watches his stomach muscles clenching, and feels the way he goes tense inside him before coming, hard, back arching off the bed. He pulls out and Loki slides his hand over himself and jerks until he comes too, Fandral's name barely a whisper on his lips.

Then Fandral is getting off the bed and going into the bathroom, and Loki can hear the water running in the sink and he falls back, his head resting on the pillow, breathing heavily. The scent of sex is still fresh in the room, and Loki buries his face in the sweat-soaked sheets, willing himself not to cry.

_You get what you ask for, _he thinks, and is even able to conjure up a small smile when Fandral returns, draping his hard body over Loki's and turning off the light.

/

Most nights, Amora sleeps huddled in the lobby of some hotel, telling the night clerks she's waiting for someone before propping her feet up on the edge of the sofa and shutting her eyes—and they never bother her, never wake her up at three in the morning, because why would you tell an emaciated, evidently homeless girl to get out into the frozen Canadian winter? She watches her hair growing out and thinks how ugly it is, the blonde roots against her dark dye, but there's nothing she can do aside from stealing and she's really not desperate enough for that—she doesn't want to end up in jail for petty theft when she could end up in jail for attempting to help Skurge get out.

Sometimes she thinks about Sif, and how surprised she looked when Amora shot her leg, like she wasn't expecting it. Amora's considered visiting her and saying, _officer of the law and you weren't even prepared for a fucking bullet to the shin,_ but she doesn't know Sif's surname or the hospital she was taken to and even if she did she's not in Toronto anymore, so it wouldn't make much difference.

Sometimes she thinks about Loki. She didn't really know him that well; he was there, and then he wasn't, and it was just sort of over in the blink of an eye, like most things in Amora's life. He and Skurge had more of a history together than either of them would let on and she could tell, but she never brought it up. She wonders how he's doing now; if he visits Skurge, if he's been killed or committed suicide. She wonders why she helped him get out the way she did; if she hadn't, the three of them would have a life together now, somewhere in Toronto, and she knows she'd like that. Ninety-five percent positive it would make her happy.

Always, she thinks of Skurge, and how he's stuck in some jail in New York, awaiting his trial. She has a vague idea in her head that when she goes to get him, he won't be as happy to see her as she will be to see him, but she can deal with that when she gets to it. She wonders if she'll be able to post bail or if she'll have to spring him, the way they do in movies, the way the Joker got himself out in _The Dark Knight. _

She falls asleep every night with his face in her mind, and dreams of the taste of his lips on hers, the way he'd run his fingers down her sides, burying his face in her hair, whispering her name against the salt of sweat on her skin.

**A/N: Okay, so, I apologize for the length of this chapter, and for how long it took to get out, but I am having some serious issues with my writing right now, and I kind of needed this chapter to happen and be done with, so. There it is.**

**Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner and be longer than this one :) **

**Also I should note here that I haven't seen **_**Les Misérables **_**yet, so if that song reference seems inaccurate, let me know. **

**And this story is going to be over soon, so don't worry about anything. Okay? Okay. **


	22. I Want You So Much

The thing Tony really hates about his current situation is that Loki _does not seem to give a fuck about their relationship anymore. _

Sure, they've been sleeping together every night, and sure, sometimes when they're both eating in because it's raining or because they have to study or _whatever_, Tony catches a look in Loki's eyes like he's in physical pain and it would probably go away if Tony were to do something like kiss him or even just drag him to the sofa and hold him in his arms—but aside from that, nothing. Loki's built up an emotional wall, and Tony can't get through—and that scares him, because usually he's the only person who can get Loki to fully open up.

He knows something _really _bad happened with Thanos, he can see it in Loki's eyes in those rare moments when he lets his guard down, but he can't decide what exactly said _bad thing _was.

Tony also knows that if he goes to Loki and actively says that he should not have kept the iron poisoning a secret, things (might) start getting better between them, but he's not going to do that. Not when he and Loki are at each other's throats for such _petty _things, like who left the bar of soap on the bathroom floor or why are there cigarettes rolled up in what is _clearly _Loki's only clean shirt for the next thirty-six hours or why is Tony's physics textbook being used as a coaster.

In the mornings, when Tony goes to shower, he sees the dark circles under his eyes and knows it's only a matter of time before lack of sleep and stress make him snap.

Today, Tony is nursing a hangover in the back of his engineering class, occasionally kicking Rhodey under the desk to remind him that _yes, _he still has to call that pretty little blonde he met at the bar last night. Or at least text her, it doesn't matter; Tony's just trying to be a good friend and get Rhodey some action. (If Tony can't be happy in his relationship then he wants to make damn sure his best friend is happy. It's a strange logic, but it's how Tony's always been, and it's gotten him this far.)

He doesn't see Justin Hammer walking up to their table until the little shit is nearly sitting on their papers, mouth twisted and pinched, a weasel-like expression in his eyes. "Hey," Justin says, and Rhodey nearly jumps out of his skin. "Mind if I join you two?"

"Sweet of you to ask," Tony says, pinching the bridge of his nose, "but I'm still not falling for all your tricks. If you want me on a date you'll have to try harder."

Justin gets a look on his face like he wants to strangle Tony, but quickly smothers it with another one of his sour, _I'm-doing-this-for-you _grins. "Not a date," he says. "Although 'dating' is definitely the topic I'm covering here—if you'll let me pull up a chair?" He gestures at one of the empty chairs at the table beside them and Tony glances at Rhodey, who shrugs, eyes glued to his phone.

"Be my guest," Tony says. "It's a free country, after all."

Justin sits, then, and leans his elbows on the table, nearly knocking over Tony's cup of coffee in the process. "So," he says, pitching his voice low so the professor won't notice. "Before I start, I should just ask—how are you and Loki doing? You know, now that he's back from his excursions with Skurge."

Tony pauses, and has to remind himself that Justin still has no idea what Thanos' real name is. "Why is it any of your business?" is what he asks, and Justin shrugs, his grin widening.

"I'm just asking because last night I saw Loki at the movie theater—with someone else."

Tony shrugs, like _so what? _"Loki has friends, Hammer. He doesn't just go places with me. Maybe it was his brother, did _that _ever occur to you?"

Justin shakes his head. "It was a date," he says, and his eyes are serious despite the grin still lingering on his mouth, and Tony feels his blood turn to ice and something in his stomach drops about twenty-thousand feet.

"You're fucking with me—"

"No, no, why would I lie about something like this, Tony? You're my _friend. _I want to watch out for you, you know? Make sure you don't get hurt."

"Yeah, you're damn good at that," Tony mutters, and Rhodey snorts.

"Well, hey, if you don't want to take me seriously, that's fine by me—but if _my _boyfriend was cheating on me, I'd want to know every last detail." Justin shrugs and pushes his chair back, like he's going to stand up, and Tony reaches out before he can stop himself and grabs roughly at Justin's arm, pulling him back down. A metal compass clatters to the ground and the professor does look up then, eyes narrowed, and they stay quiet until he turns back to the board, shaking his head a little.

"_Fine_," Tony snarls, voice dangerously low. "Tell me about it, then."

Justin's grin returns, and he looks like the cat who got the cream as he leans back a little in his seat, adjusting his glasses. "I was working the night shift at the theater and it was pretty slow, y'know, because apparently working at a movie house by a university during the school semester means you don't get any business—"

"If you could get to the point, Draco."

"Well, it was about eight, maybe a little later, and Loki walked in, _hand-in-hand _with some blond guy I'd never seen before—"

Eight p.m., Tony remembers suddenly, is around when he'd started getting slightly wasted and decided it would be a good idea to call Loki and ask if they could talk, but of course Loki hadn't answered.

"—and so I said 'hey' to him and I asked him where you were, and he said 'none of your business'—"

"Because it's really not—"

"—and I said 'why are you here with someone else' and—here's where it gets interesting, Tony—he said, his exact words were, 'Stark and I are not _bound _to one another'. That's what he said to me. And he walked off with this guy maybe two seconds later and they were holding hands. And then probably twenty minutes later I saw them rush back out of the theater and they left, didn't even notice me, but they looked like they were in a hurry to get somewhere." Justin sighs, stretching, palms flat against the table. Almost as an afterthought he adds:

"If they weren't heading off to fuck then I don't know what they were heading off to do."

Tony's frowning at the table, his breathing coming heavy, his fists clenching and unclenching against his thighs. He knows it's illogical to get so angry at Loki over cheating, when he did the _exact same thing, _but he can't help it. So he's sitting here, day after day, worried sick about Loki, wondering when he's going to actually be able to force himself to talk it out with him—and meanwhile Loki's off taking some other guy up the ass. It isn't okay, and it's not fair, and he reaches over and takes a long drink of coffee before saying:

"Thanks for telling me about that, then. Let me just look up where to buy my consolation prize for _most shitty things happening to someone in less than four months_, and I'll get back to you later."

Justin does a slightly confused laugh and stands up, adjusting his glasses again. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Tony," he says, but Tony's ignoring him now, staring at his phone, and he walks back to his table with his shoulders slightly slumped.

Tony stares at the black screen, moving his thumb idly from one corner to the other, debating on the pros and cons of texting Loki _now, _or waiting until later. Ultimately he decides he's going to have to wait—especially because if Justin's lying (which is entirely plausible, because Justin is a little shit), Tony's going to want to look Loki in the face when he says he hasn't been cheating.

It's too much to hope for, really, but he wants to believe that Loki is still his, and he spends the rest of class losing himself in complex equations and building structures.

/

Loki is curled up in the darkest part of the basement of the astronomy building, staring blankly at the latest photographs sent in by the Voyager spacecraft, which has _finally _gone past the ninth planet in the solar system and is heading into deep space. He pulls his fingers through his hair, sighing softly, allowing his eyes to drift over the expanse of stars and galaxies for a moment before tilting his head back against the wall.

The thing is, he can't stop thinking about Fandral, and how, the more he replays last night in his head, the more he considers the possibility that it was an accident.

It isn't just that Fandral didn't exactly live up to what Loki had been expecting—and he isn't exactly sure _what_ that was, but he certainly didn't count on the man being one of the least satisfactory partners Loki's ever had. It's that afterwards, when Fandral was asleep and Loki was staring at the paint chipping in the wall, listening to the faint wail of an ambulance siren in the distance, he started to think about what he did regarding Thanos and Amora, and how he didn't tell Tony, and how, if he's going to be honest with himself, that was a really _shitty _move to pull.

Because sure, Tony was wrong not to mention his failing electromagnet. But Loki knows he should've told Tony that Thanos was back, because regardless of whether or not Loki thinks he needs help, Tony could have put an end to it _long _before Amora was able to sneak that cassette into his car.

And Loki hates that about himself, that he couldn't stop Thanos alone, and sitting in the basement he wonders what that makes him; how he will be in the future. He wraps the frayed end of his jeans around his finger and lets out a soft, shaky sigh, pressing his palm to his forehead. There is a distinct chain of events in Loki's life now, and he sees it like this:

a.) He didn't tell Tony that Thanos was back, so

b.) Thanos and Amora threatened him, and because he's gullible and weak

c.) Thanos was able to get him away from Tony, which then caused

i.) The kidnapping

ii.) The rape

iii.) The Canadian border crossing

d.) And even when he was able to finally get away from Thanos, it wasn't because of anything he did, which _still _makes him weak

e.) And now he can't look Tony in the eye because he's too ashamed and he's just going to end up single, fucking every guy he sees because why does he deserve better.

But the only problem with that is that he _wants_ Tony back. He does, and he hates the thought of not having at least one more chance with the man because after everything _they've _been through, Loki's surprised sometimes when he doesn't see an engagement ring on his left hand.

His phone buzzes, and he checks his messages: it's Fandral, wanting to know if they're on for tonight. _'I can't,' _he texts back, after hesitating for a second. _'I'm sorry.' _He shuts his phone off, then, hoping Fandral will get the underlying message, and he stands up, slinging his booksack over his shoulder and walking towards the stairs.

He's going to talk to Tony about this. It's gone on too long; it's enough. If he has to _kill_, he will get Tony back.

(And he will completely ignore the little voice in the back of his head that tells him _you don't deserve Tony and he __**certainly**__ doesn't want you_.)

/

Loki stops on the way home and picks up McDonalds, because he's starving and he's pretty sure he can ignore the disgusting fat and grease dripping from the Quarter Pounder in favor of the fact that it tastes like sin and smells twice as good. When he pulls into the parking lot of the apartment complex, he sees Tony's car already sitting in front of their door, and he winces a little, climbing out with their food and locking his Impala before walking up and fitting the key into the lock. There's a moment of hesitation while he balances the burgers and fries and shakes on one arm and unlocks the door with the other hand, because as (_ninety-eight percent_) sure he is that he wants this to work out between the two of them, he's still nervous as _fuck_—Tony's not exactly known for his easygoing manner or beach resort-charming attitude.

Tony is in the kitchen when he walks in, fixing something in the microwave, and doesn't look up when Loki drops his keys in the bowl beside the door, though his body goes still for a second. "Hey," Loki says, setting his books on the sofa and walking to the table, placing their McDonalds' bags on it. "I got supper, if that's okay."

Tony does glance at him then, like he's surprised Loki's speaking to him—which Loki really doesn't blame him for, because ever since he came back all they've been doing is fighting, and all Loki ever does is snap Tony's head off, even if he's just asking something like _where's the remote? _

"I'm fixing myself something, but thanks," he replies, and Loki just shrugs, taking his burger back out and biting into it. They are quiet for a while, and it's more than a little awkward, and eventually Tony turns away from the microwave, hands shoved in his pockets, and asks:

"What are you doing home right now?" at the same time that Loki says:

"We need to talk," and they laugh, static, sharp bursts of energy, before falling silent again. Loki pulls a fry out of the bag and dips it in ketchup, smearing the excess off against the cardboard before dropping it in his mouth.

Tony scratches his collarbone, a nervous habit that means he's about to approach an uncomfortable topic and would really prefer to be drunk than sober. "I agree, we _do _need to talk," he says, and there's a strange note in his voice, something almost, but not quite, like hostility. It confuses Loki, and he watches as Tony pulls his frozen dinner out of the microwave, wincing at the heat, before saying:

"Well, all right… I believe it's time for us to talk about what's going on between us—we need to salvage our relationship, Tony."

"That's _rich _coming from a guy who's just been out _fucking _random blond men," Tony snarls abruptly, and Loki blinks, momentarily set back, before smoothing his features out, because he's nothing if not an excellent liar.

"I have no idea what you are talking of—"

Tony nearly slams his dinner down on the table before hitting the wall with his fist, looking like he's about five seconds away from completely losing control. "_Yeah, _I think you _do, _all right—who the _hell _were you with at the theater last night?"

"How—" It's one word too many, and Loki catches his slipup a second too late. Tony laughs, harsh and angry, and a manic grin splits across his face.

"So you _did _cheat." He steps forward, arms folded across his chest, looking murderous. "Tell me, Loki, do you feel better now, knowing that you've actually managed to stoop down to my level? Are you sleeping easier at night knowing that you've come home and fucked everyone _except _me?"

Loki doesn't even bother denying it, the accusation—why should he, when Tony obviously already knows what happened? "As if you have a right to speak. You, who would take anyone at any time so long as they were attractive and you were drunk."

"Oh, right," Tony laughs sarcastically, "because you've seen me cheating _so often _since you and I have been together for the last two years."

Which pisses Loki off for no reason, because even though he knows Tony's right it's starting to sink in that for once, _he's _more in the wrong than his boyfriend, so he says, "There's no validity in that statement, Stark—you're incredibly good at hiding things from me. For all I know you've been running a brothel in the subway to pay for our rent."

"That would make me Hugh Hefner and I wouldn't be fucking my Playmates," Tony counters instantly, walking to the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of beer.

Loki waves a hand. "Point _is,_" he says, a bit fiercely, "you have no right to call me out on my mistakes when you're the original fuckup in this relationship." It's low, even for Loki, and he half-relishes in the way Tony flinches, eyes going dark.

"_I'm _not the one who chose to keep my rapist's return a secret."

"I wasn't _dying, _Tony."

Instinctively, Tony's hand falls over his electromagnet, and he takes a swig of alcohol. "Hey, I had this all under control. Still do actually—you can ask Yinsen, it's the first responsible thing I've done as a functioning adult of society. I didn't want you to worry about me—"

"Ah, I see, so you decided it would be best to just not tell me anything at all."

"I was _going _to, Loki, for Christ's sake—"

"Yes, when? On your deathbed?"

"Can this _not _be about me for five fucking seconds? What about _you? _You're always saying about how you can take care of yourself but you got fucking _kidnapped, _and I didn't even know until twenty-four hours later when I got that visit from Justin. Do you even realize how _worried _I was?"

"I could not have contacted you from where I was with Thanos—"

"Yeah, no, I'm talking about _before, _when he first showed up." Tony tilts the bottle back against his lips again, then sets it on the table next to his cooling supper. The expression in his eyes is a strange amalgamation of furious, terrified, and utterly _depressed. _"He was here for some weeks before you got taken, wasn't he? Must have been anyway—why didn't you tell me he was here _then?_"

"I—" and here Loki pauses, because okay, yeah, he's the most comfortable around this man but even Tony isn't privy to his vulnerable state most of the time. He reaches over and grabs Tony's beer and takes a drink from it, and the liquid slides cold and sharp down his throat.

"I didn't want you to think I was still the same defenseless, pathetic person from sophomore year. I wanted to keep Thanos off by myself—"

"As I've said before, that worked out _real _well for you, didn't it." There is just enough bite in Tony's voice, just enough malice, to set Loki off again, and without thinking he reaches out and shoves Tony's shoulders. Unprepared, the older of the two stumbles back a bit, knocking into the wall, and a shadow crosses his face.

"Thanos is jailed now," Loki says, before Tony can speak. "It matters no more what he's done."

"Yeah, maybe not to the rest of the world, but to _you_, personally, it's always going to matter." It's the most honest thing Tony's said in a while, and it stumps Loki, and he leans back, defenses going down for half a second. Tony catches this momentary weakness and starts forward, his expression caught somewhere between hate and sorrow. "He did something to you, Loki. I can tell, and I couldn't stop him from doing it." His fists are clenched. "I don't think you realize how bad I feel about that."

Here's what Loki _wants _to say: _'Perhaps if I had told you about Thanos before, you __**could **__have done something to prevent him from taking me. So I'm sorry I didn't say anything, Tony. So very sorry.' _But he's upset and he's hungry and this evening has not gone the way he'd hoped _at fucking all, _and when Loki is upset, he tends to lash out at whoever is in the room with him. So what he _ends up _saying is:

"Oh, really, _you _feel bad about something? Tie me up in the electric chair because I am _shocked,_" and Tony calls him a _fucking bitch _and he calls Tony a _shitfaced hypocrite _and experiences a momentary, terrifying urge to grab the electromagnet and rip it out of Tony's chest because he needs to maintain some semblance of _control _over his life again and if he could just get Tony to _shut up_—

But then Tony slams him against the wall, nearly causing Loki to hit his head, and he's opening his mouth to ask 'what the _hell, _Stark' when Tony kisses him, gripping his sides and working his jaw against Loki's in an aggressively sensual way (which is something, Loki notes with a slight tinge of pride, that only Tony Stark can pull off). He slides his tongue along the roof of Loki's mouth, effectively shutting _both _of them up, and Loki tastes alcohol and nicotine and a whisper of peppermint. He hooks his fingers through Tony's belt loops, trying to pull him closer, only half conscious of the way he's deepening the kiss, turning it into something more desperate, heavy.

When Tony pulls away, there is perfect silence in the apartment, except for the clock ticking and their fast breathing. Loki's mouth is bruised red and Tony's is swollen and Loki cannot help but to eyefuck Tony for a second before leaning in and kissing him again gently, barely on the corner of his lips.

"Was that an apology?" he asks quietly, because this situation calls for quiet voices.

Tony shrugs, and won't look at Loki, not even when he tries tugging on Tony's jaw. "I don't know," he says finally, almost (but not quite) snapping the words, sounding pained. "I don't think I have anything to apologize _for._"

"Except for telling me you were fine when you were really slowly being consumed from the inside out—"

"_Yeah, all right, I'm fucking sorry for that," _Tony snarls. "I should have told you about the goddamn iron poisoning. I know that. But you had shit to tell me, too, you know. And you never did." He reaches up and runs his fingers through his hair, looking frustrated. "And then you turned around and cheated on me with some guy I don't even know."

"That was a mistake too," Loki acquiesces, frowning at his feet. "Please, Tony—"

But Tony's already turning from him, not letting him finish the sentence, grabbing his jacket and his car keys. "I need time to think," is what he says, and fear rushes through Loki, cold and fierce and all-consuming. "I'll be back later." His hand goes to his electromagnet again, and for a second his eyes drop to where both he and Loki know the mysterious scar is on Loki's hip, and then he's walking to the door. His hand is on the knob when Loki calls:

"I'm sorry, you know. For not saying anything. For shutting you out."

Tony hesitates, his entire back going tense, and then he says, "I need to go," and he walks out, and Loki's left alone in the apartment with a warm bottle of beer, a cold formerly-frozen dinner, two bags of uneaten McDonalds, and a feeling in his chest like he's never going to see Tony again, at least not as his boyfriend.

He heads up the stairs, turns on the shower, peels off his clothes, and there, curled up under the steady stream of water, he allows his breath to catch and then come, harsh and fast and tear-logged, from the back of his throat.

/

It's been a month since Thanos was put in jail, but he still has yet to get used to the whole scenario—lights on all night, even when they're supposed to be asleep; voices constantly echoing through the corridors, screaming obscenities until a guard bangs on the concrete and tells them to shut the _fuck _up; one hour of sunlight a day, shared with two hundred other inmates. Some of them call him _Skurge, _because that's what his cellmates call him and his cellmates have a few friends, but most of them, the ones who want to get on his nerves or the ones who think the guards are their best friends, call him _Thanos. _

In particular among his haranguers is Victor von Doom, a medium-security prisoner who was put on trial years ago for supposedly murdering his girlfriend when she said _no _to his marriage proposal. (Thanos isn't entirely sure why he's in medium security now and has never really found the right time to ask.) At first, Thanos thought he and Victor could be friends, since they share many of the same qualities—ruthlessness, dead eyes, cruel humor—but Victor _hates _Thanos and isn't exactly shy about letting him know that. He calls him a _fucking suck-up _because he thinks he's trying too hard to get people to hate him, and sometimes when they're all outside together Victor likes to get Thanos riled up, which induces a physical fight, which lands them both in solitary.

Once, in the beginning of Thanos' stay, he and Victor were alone in the showers, and (thoughtlessly) he made a reference to the fact that he'd raped Loki, multiple times, and he'd do it again if he got out. In response, Victor had grabbed him by the neck, slammed him against the tile wall of the shower, and taken him so roughly he couldn't sit down for several days afterwards. Thanos physically shakes now when Victor gets too close (which basically means every time they fight in the courtyard, which _sucks_), and sometimes he dreams of how exactly he's going to murder von Doom once he gets the chance.

He has never wanted Amora back so much as he does now, sitting in his jail cell with nothing to do but stare at the wall, hands shaking, skin bruised and cut from all his battles.

**A/N: There are either two or three more chapters after this, I'm not sure yet. Thoughts? **

**Again, I love all of you so much. **


	23. Miserable and Stunning

After Tony leaves the apartment, he climbs into his car and then just sits there, the key in the ignition, not actually going anywhere. He stares at the front door as though half-expecting Loki to come bursting out, but of course nothing happens, and eventually he guns the motor and drives off.

He ends up heading back to Shangri-La, and the whole way there, the radio plays "Kashmir", like it's deliberately trying to torture him. There is something awful about hearing a song as wrought with memories as that one is—if the present life you have with the person is nonexistent or fucked halfway to hell or even mediocre, the quality of the memories doesn't matter. Songs can fucking waste you, and that's how Tony feels now, with Led Zeppelin reverberating from his speakers—like Humphrey Bogart hearing "As Time Goes By" in his French café for the first time since Ingrid Bergman left. It doesn't matter that he and Loki are technically still a couple, or that this particular song represents an entirely different time period in Tony's life, one that is over and done with. To him, this song will always mean Loki, and the sight of him in the water, the feeling of the sun on his back, the way his laughter rang into their kiss.

Tony generally pinpoints that afternoon as his first real awareness of being in love with Loki.

He can't physically force himself to change the station, so he rides with the song. By the time he gets to Shangri-La, he's stewing, struggling not to think about Loki and finding himself failing miserably. There isn't a thing in the world he wants more than to _forget _for tonight, and so naturally his brain is focusing on the one thing he can't bear to remember. Angry, he shoves his keys into his back pocket and heads into the building, not even bothering to pause at the door to show his identification before he's walking up to the bar and asking for a gin and tonic. The bartender hands it to him with a little lime stuck on the edge of the glass, like a green crescent moon, and Tony downs the entire thing in one gulp and asks for a second, pressing his credit card into the man's hand and mumbling something about _'just charge it, I don't care anymore'_.

He has his lips pressed idly to the rim of his fourth glass when he feels fingers resting on his shoulder and a familiar voice whispers in his ear, "Back in the trenches, then?" and he turns and sees Pepper—_Pepper making World War I jokes_—standing behind him, smiling her usual _'I don't actually want anything from you but if you're willing to give I won't object to taking' _smile, her dress hanging just off one pale shoulder, hair long and red and brushing her skin.

"Good evening, Pep," he says, because there's no reason, really, for him to be angry with her—although she has tried to hit on him a couple times in the past few weeks, but he's just starting to get drunk and he actually doesn't care, because if Loki can cheat with some faceless asshole from Bumfuck, Nowhere, why can't he have a little fun with his ex? "And how's it going in the land of Virginia Potts?"

She winces at the name but doesn't say anything, just sits beside him, tossing her hair over her shoulder and ordering a glass of Chardonnay. "Ooh, I'm doing well," she says, stretching her arms out. "I have a boyfriend, now, did you know?"

"Congratulations," Tony mutters into his drink, sipping the last dregs of it from around the ice cubes and sliding it over the ceramic of the table to the bartender. "Who's the lucky cuckold?" He says it only a little sarcastically, because when he's drunk he tends to get a bit more snarky than usual, but either a.) she doesn't notice or b.) she notices but has no idea what the word _cuckold _means, and Tony's willing to put all his money on the letter B, please, Pat Sajak.

She gives him an odd look, then shrugs. "His name is Rick," she says, offhandedly, like it doesn't matter. "He's a junior, he majors in astronomy—"

"Ah, I see, so you've finally decided to fulfill your lifelong dream of becoming a cougar." He smiles at her, nastily, twitching his leg, drinking some more.

"And I see you still have no idea how to control yourself when you're drunk and heartbroken," she shoots back instantly, and that sort of gives him pause because Old Pepper never noticed this sort of thing; if he was rude to her when he was drunk, she'd chalk it up to flirting and either try to seduce him or go call Howard, which always disgusted him into silence. But this is New Pepper, and he keeps forgetting that while she's still ninety-five percent about getting into his pants, she's now also five percent about wanting him to be happy, and if that means actually acting like an adult and calling him out on his bullshit, then she's going to do it.

Frankly, Tony's a little freaked out by New Pepper.

He sips on his drink and eyes her through the gin running along the inside of the glass. "I'm not heartbroken," he counters. "You need a heart for that, remember?"

She hits his arm, looking annoyed. "Oh my _god, _Tony, fucking _Christ_."

"What," he says, flatly, setting the drink down on the table and staring at her.

"Look, last time I saw you, you were moping over Loki, and I told you to talk to him and make it right. And now here we are again, a month later maybe, and you're _still _moping over him—"

"Correction: I'm experiencing serious withdrawal from sex, it makes me antsy—"

"—And I'm going to ignore that in favor of the fact that your moping means _yes, _you _do _have a heart, Tony, and you're missing Loki. More than I think you're going to admit to yourself."

"Well, when'd you become a fucking psychiatrist?" Tony drums his fingers on the table for a second, then pulls out his pack of cigarettes and lights one, completely ignoring the disgusted look he's getting from the older woman behind him. "Anyway, I talked to him tonight, you wouldn't know that. But I talked to him."

Pepper smiles a little bit. "And how'd that go?"

Tony draws in on the cigarette for a long time, blowing the smoke out in lazy gray clouds around their heads, before replying:

"We ended up making out instead of actually getting anything resolved."

She shrugs. "That's something."

Tony hesitates, sucking in on his lower lip with his teeth, staring at the glowing end of his half-finished cigarette. "He _cheated _on me," he says finally, his voice low and bitter and it occurs to him that senseless though it may be, he's still _furious _about what happened.

Pepper's expression shifts from neutral to amused and then back so quickly Tony thinks he might have imagined it. "You did the same to him, you know. You'd look like an awful hypocrite, telling him off for fucking around when you're so famous for your infidelity."

Tony's eyebrows shoot up to the top of his head, and he's not sure whether to feel irritated that this is _Pepper, _of all people, telling him this, or impressed that Pepper knows words like 'hypocrite' and 'infidelity'. "Please tell me you aren't taking his side."

"Well, what did you talk about with him tonight, if it wasn't about him cheating? I mean, surely you must have plowed through at least _some _of your feelings on the matter."

"Yeah, we started to, but then the conversation kind of… veered in a different direction." He takes a deep breath, orders another drink. "We talked about trust issues regarding the whole kidnapping thing, and the iron poisoning, and he yelled at me and I yelled at him and then we made out and then… I left." He shrugs, staring down at his legs, which are shaking a little, though he doesn't know why. He drinks, smokes, and his gaze shifts to the ceiling, covered in dimly lit fluorescent lights. The music is pulsating throughout the bar—some autotuned mix, the kind of pop shit Steve listens to, and Tony has the sudden impression that he's floating underwater.

Pepper sighs. "Did he apologize?" she asks, and he starts to shake his head, but then changes his mind.

"Not for cheating," he says. "For Thanos, though. He said he was sorry for not telling me."

She bites her lower lip. "And you? Did you say 'sorry' too, Tony?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of?"

"Well." He smiles at her, and it's bitter. "You know how I am." And then he laughs, and she does too, throwing her head back like he's said the _funniest _thing when really all he wants is to smash his head in with a brick.

"I still say talk to him," she says after a bit. "Because apologizing and making out are good steps—I mean, I think he misses you, Tony. I think he misses you like you miss him. You just need to stop being so proud and actually open your eyes and _see _it."

He wants to tell her that she doesn't even _know _Loki and what right does she have to say that, but she's just staring at him, her hand pressed lightly against his arm, an expression in her eyes that's half sad, half _do this you idiot, _and after a few seconds he sets his drink down and stands up, drawing on his cigarette again before smashing it out in the ashtray. "Thanks, Pepper," he says, and means it. "I just wish I could make myself forget that he slept with someone else."

"People make mistakes," she says, staring down at the arch of her foot. "It doesn't mean that he loves you any less."

He knows it's true, and so naturally it's about sixty times harder to hear than anything else. Instead of replying, he leans in and lightly kisses her cheek, then pulls his keys out of his back pocket and nods once at her before walking out. It's only nine-thirty when he gets in his car, so he drives around for a while, aimlessly, his Radiohead CD in because he doesn't want to risk anymore run-ins with "Kashmir". The music is bleak and dark and seems to swell around him, mirroring his mood perfectly.

"_I want you to notice when I'm not around…" _Thom sings. "_You're so fuckin' special. I wish I was special._"

Tony can't imagine being able to let his guard down enough to actually verbally apologize. But he can't imagine losing Loki, either. In his heart, he knows Pepper was right—just because Loki fucked up doesn't mean he loves him any less. Tony knows that better than anyone.

His heart clenches around his electromagnet, and he stops the car in an abandoned parking lot and stares at the sky, mostly yellow with city lights, until his vision stops blurring and he's able to think without his head spinning in a million different directions.

By the time he gets back to the apartment, it's almost one o'clock in the morning, and he has no idea how he managed to drive around for that long, but it doesn't really matter when he's exhausted and dizzy and still a little tiny bit drunk. He goes in as quietly as he can, setting his keys into the bowl beside the door, eyes sweeping the downstairs area. It's silent except for the ticking of the clock set above the television, and the only light in the room is the raw, blue glow of the moon, coming through the glass doors that lead to the back patio. He stands for a moment in the moonlight, drinking it in, before heading upstairs, and he doesn't know why but his heart is racing—he can see it moving the front of his shirt. Tony pauses to splash water on his face in the bathroom and run his toothbrush across his tongue, then he goes to his bedroom door and stands there, leaning against the frame for a second before going in.

Loki is asleep in his—_their?_—bed, and it's warm enough in the apartment so that he can sleep shirtless, bare shoulders sticking up from underneath the sheets, rising and falling slowly as he breathes. Tony takes off his own shirt, tossing it in the laundry hamper along with his jeans, and after he kicks off his shoes he crawls into bed beside Loki, sliding the covers over himself. Loki's face is pressed into the pillow, his black hair spread like a halo around his head, but when Tony settles down Loki turns towards him, unconsciously, his cheeks flushed in sleep. He looks vulnerable, the pale line of his throat exposed, and Tony allows his eyes to sweep across Loki's thin frame before he rolls onto his back, the electromagnet casting a blue glow on the ceiling. He stares at that until his eyelids grow heavy, and the last thing he's aware of before falling asleep is the feeling of Loki's fingers drifting, like slow creatures, over his wrist.

/

In the morning, Loki wakes up before Tony, and is surprised to see him lying there, his arm flung over the side of the bed, the sheets wrapped haphazardly around his waist. He's shirtless, and Loki trails his fingers over the new electromagnet, feeling its hum against his skin. His thumb brushes Tony's skin, and the engineer wakes up, startling for a second before he sees Loki, and his face relaxes into a half smile.

"Hey," he says, and his voice is all thick and hoarse with sleep, and he reaches out and pushes a lock of Loki's hair behind his ear, like it's normal for them. Loki doesn't know how to respond to the touch, doesn't know what's going to happen to them now after last night's blowout, doesn't even know where Tony went or when he came home, so he just curls his lips up, returning the smile, and ghosts his hand along Tony's side.

After a while, he asks, "What time is it?" and Tony glances over his shoulder and makes a face and tells him:

"Eleven," and Loki hesitates before shrugging and shifting his body a little, moving his fingers over Tony's ribs—and damn, if he's not sure where they stand in their relationship right now, he's certainly being bold with what he's doing and how he's doing it.

Tony shivers. "So you're not going to class?" he asks quietly, and Loki shakes his head _no. _

"I have been taking linguistics for four years now; I suppose I can miss one seminar."

So they lie in bed together all morning, and they don't talk much, but Loki doesn't stop trailing his fingers over Tony's chest and Tony won't stop playing with Loki's hair, and once when Loki makes eye contact with Tony he sees something in his expression that is quite different from what was there last night.

Eventually they get up and go in the bathroom to brush their teeth together, and it's in there, after they've rinsed their mouths out with Listerine, that Loki finally takes the initiative and kisses Tony, pressing him lightly against the wall and running his fingers through his hair. Tony's fingers settle on Loki's hips, bringing him closer, and Loki can feel the vibration of the electromagnet between them, the pulse of Tony's heart beneath that.

When he pulls away, it's reluctant, and he presses his forehead against Tony's, his breathing coming uneven and fast. He swallows harshly, feeling Tony shaking a little beside him.

"Where are we?" is what Loki asks, his voice coming low and serious. "What are we going to do?"

"I _want _to be with you, still," Tony says softly, running his hand down Loki's cheek. "But I—"

Loki sucks in a breath. He knows what the hesitation means, and god he _won't _cry, not now, not again. "It's okay," he says, drawing away. "I know." He glances at his Android's screen, which is displaying _one-thirty, _and murmurs something about having to get to class, and leaves Tony in the bathroom so he can get dressed and get the hell out of the apartment. The air is thick and heavy in their room, and he pulls on his sweatshirt and jeans, listening to the shower running, his teeth gritted.

He wonders if he will spend the rest of eternity regretting Fandral, and Thanos, and every fucking thing about this semester that he's done wrong.

/

After his course is over, he heads down the street to the coffee shop, orders a decaf and a cake, and then sits there, staring into the dark liquid, inhaling the scent of the steam rising up. His phone buzzes twice: once, it's Thor, and once, it's Fandral, and both times he ignores it because it isn't Tony. The cashier, a pretty girl with dark hair, barely out of high school, gives him a hesitant smile which he returns with some trepidation before sipping on his coffee and staring at a painting of the New York City skyline on the opposite wall.

The third time his phone buzzes, it's an unknown number sending him a text, and he disregards it twice before muttering, "Fuck it," and hitting the message.

'_Loki,' _it reads, _'it's Amora. I need a favor. Please answer me.'_

'_Why the fuck should I help you?' _he replies, feeling a wave of irritation rush over him. The last time he saw Amora, they were in Toronto, and she was shooting Fandral's friend and then running off. She bound his wrists with rope and let Thanos have his way with him and never did _shit _for him, even though she was under no obligations to let Thanos' insane run continue the way she did.

Her text is a long time in coming, and he's three-fourths of the way through with his coffee before his phone buzzes: _'Because I'm the one who messaged your brother and told him to send help.'_

Oh.

_Oh. _

His mouth is suddenly dry, and he gulps down the rest of his coffee and slaps a five dollar bill on the table before nearly running out of the café and back to where he parked his car. _'Fine,' _he texts her, when he's inside his Impala with the heat going and the radio playing Gustav Mahler. _'What do you need? And it had better be something simple, because I'm not harboring you as a fugitive of the law.'_

'_No, no, nothing like that.' _He wonders if she's laughing at him, wherever she is. He rarely saw her smile, unless she was with Thanos, and even then it had to be a _really _special day. _'I need you to find where Skurge's jail is, and how much bail money he needs to get out.'_

He almost asks her why the hell she can't find him herself, until he realizes that she'd be looking for him as _Skurge, _not _Thanos, _and then he can't stop the grin that forms on his face._ 'Do you really think I'm going to help you release him?'_

'_Hey. I fucking freed you, you ungrateful little shit. Get me Skurge. He's all I want.' _There's a pause, and then another text rolls onto the screen of his phone: _'Please.' _

He hates Amora. He hates her, and he hates Thanos, and he hates himself for empathizing. _'His name is Thanos,' _he texts back eventually, his chest tightening in pre-panic mode. _'That's all the information I'm giving you. Figure the rest out for yourself,' _and then he shuts his phone completely off and leans back into his seat cushion, shaking a little, the soft violins and piano chords floating around his head in sad discontent.

**A/N: I rewrote the beginning three times before I settled on this one, and even now I'm not sure about this chapter. Especially the ending. But anyway here you go, hope you enjoy!**

**Also it is ninety-nine point nine percent likely that there are two chapters left after this before this story is over. **


	24. What I Really Meant to Say

By the time Loki gets back to the apartment, the sky is darkening overhead, and he's feeling a little like curling up into a ball and _dying _in the front seat of his car when he sees that Bruce is there, because it means that Tony is either a.) studying or b.) getting drunk, and in either case he's not going to want to talk to Loki, not right now. With a soft sigh, he cuts the motor and then sits there, watching the keys swing back and forth slowly before coming to a halt.

It's funny, the way Tony still has such an effect over him, even now, even after all the shit that has passed between them.

He manages to get out of the car and unlocks the front door of the apartment, stepping inside. It's cool, quiet, dark, and Loki wonders if they've gone somewhere before he sees them sitting on the sofa together, eating chips, studying from Tony's giant Physics book. Tony looks up at the sound of the door shutting and when he sees Loki everything about his expression changes, softens almost imperceptibly, and he sets down the beer bottle he was holding and gets up, walking over to where Loki is standing. He wraps his arms around him, pulling him close and carding his fingers through his hair, and Loki inhales his scent: gasoline, and alcohol, and cigarettes, and leather, and chemicals, and some foreign spice. He barely has time to wonder what's going on before Tony murmurs, just loud enough for Loki to hear:

"What's going on, babe?" and then Loki remembers that he wears his emotions sometimes, especially when he's tired, and he shakes his head and spreads his hands over Tony's hips, just grateful for the sudden closeness, and Tony glances over his shoulder and then back at Loki. He lifts his eyebrows—Tony-speak for _five minutes_, part of a code they invented back in high school, when they took detention together and weren't allowed to talk—and walks back over to where Bruce is still sitting, staring at a complicated formula.

"Brucie," he says, and Bruce makes a face. "You gotta go. My boyfriend's back and we're gonna be in trouble." They both laugh, and Bruce stands, grabbing his car keys and a last handful of chips before walking out, nodding once in Loki's direction.

Then they're alone, Tony and Loki, and Tony leans back against the sofa cushions, patting the space beside him. "Come here," he says, and Loki walks to him, sinking down and resting his head on Tony's shoulder.

"Hey," he breathes out.

"What's wrong?" Tony asks, shifting a little. "You look worse than you did when we found out that Thor had gotten confused and ordered sashimi instead of Swedish."

Loki smiles a little at the memory. "It didn't turn out so bad, though."

"No, but Odin was _pissed, _remember? 'How the _fuck _am I supposed to eat this shit, Thor? It was just swimming in a river ten minutes ago!'" Tony's impersonation of Odin is just a tad over exaggerated, and they both laugh, and Loki can feel the vibrations coming up through Tony's chest.

When they've quieted down a bit, Tony says, "But like you said, that turned out all right. And whatever's going on with you right now, it will too. So just. Tell me. Please."

He never says 'please', and Loki feels his chest constrict. He swallows, forces himself to look Tony in the eye, and says:

"I spoke with Amora. About Thanos." He hesitates, then adds, "I told her his true name, and she says she's going to post bail."

Tony stiffens against him, and Loki sucks in a breath. "Don't—" he starts, but Tony's already gotten up and is grabbing his cell phone from its place on top of the television. He taps in a number and waits, pacing across the room, until the line gets picked up.

"Thor," he spits into the phone, "we have a situation—No, fuck, it's your _brother, _he's told Amora that Thanos—Yeah, well, I don't know either, but he told her his real name and now she's going to free him—_Exactly, _thank you for getting my point right away, I'll meet you in ten minutes." He hangs up and grabs his coat from the back of a chair.

Instantly Loki is up from the sofa, his eyes gone wide and frantic and wild. "Tony, _wait,_" he's pleading, but Tony _won't listen, _and this isn't what Loki wanted to have happen, not really. He follows Tony to the door and then grabs his wrist, gripping it tightly enough to leave bruises.

"_Stark,_" he snarls, suddenly, inexplicably angry, and Tony goes tense in his hand. "Fucking _stop_."

"Hey, just because you fucked up and told this crazy bitch that her sociopathic boyfriend's real name isn't 'Scourge' or whatever the fuck doesn't mean you have to pay for it later. I haven't been protecting you right, Loki—"

"It's too late for that," Loki interrupts, harshly, because it's the truth and he's not trying to be mean, it just is what it is—he's well past the point of protection, and if Tony wants to try being more involved in his life now then fine, but it's not going to erase what's already happened.

Tony jerks his wrist from Loki's grasp and stares at him, and his expression is a mixture of anger and hurt. "So I suppose it's too late for us, as well?"

Shit. Shit shit _shit. _

Loki breathes out slow, trying to calm himself down. "Just… wait, okay? I don't know where Amora is or what she's doing. If Thor can find her then fine, let him, but… I have something I need to tell you."

The look in Tony's eyes says, _why the fuck is your brother allowed to do this for you, _but he doesn't move, and after a few seconds he asks, "_What, _Shakespeare?" and oh _god, _that sounds so _good _coming out of his mouth. He's obviously exasperated, but there's something sad and almost affectionate and wistful behind his voice so Loki figures he's not as irritated as he sounds.

"Call Thor first," he says, and goes to sit on the sofa while Tony redials Thor's number. His body is still tense, shaking a little, and he's chewing his lower lip while he speaks into the phone, explaining the situation as briefly as he can. When he hangs up, he looks at Loki, and his eyes are dark and cold and exhausted and he looks for all the world like he's on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"I just really wanted to get that piece of shit for you this time," he says as he walks forward, the electromagnet casting a blue glow over his face, enunciating the hollows in his cheeks and underneath his eyes. "I fuck up so much, I thought maybe this would make up for it—" He's at the sofa by this point, and Loki reaches up and takes his hand in his, rubbing his thumb against Tony's skin.

"Thor will take care of it," he says, though he's not entirely confident that Thor _can, _and honestly, he doesn't even know if he _wants _him to. Thanos and Amora deserve each other, Loki thinks, same as he and Tony. As long as he lives he will never forget the way they looked at each other when they thought he was asleep, the way Thanos seemed to complete Amora, curled against her on dirt-covered floors or squeezed in next to her in cramped restaurant booths.

Loki wonders sometimes if that's what people see when they look at him and Tony.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand, exhaling. "Tell me what it was you wanted to tell me." He sits beside Loki, carefully detaching their hands so he can prop his head up, staring at the opposite wall. He wants a cigarette; Loki can tell by the way he's fidgeting with his thumbs.

"So um. While I was with Thanos, I was tortured." He can't meet Tony's eyes, although at the word _tortured _he sees the man's head whip around lightning fast and feels his eyes boring holes into his shirt as he stares. "He enjoyed binding my wrists—" Loki lifts one hand, and allows Tony to look at the faint markings from the rope burns—"and sometimes he liked to play around with knives near me. That's where the scar is from—the one on my hip? It happened in Toronto—we were staying in a hotel, the three of us, and Amora had gone to the store for some food, and he grabbed me and pinned me against the bed and sliced my skin open with a dagger."

"What the _fuck_—"

"By the time she returned, he'd covered it with bandages, but it wasn't enough. The cut healed crooked, and it was infected for a few days while we were in Canada."

"Shit, Loki." Tony's voice is low, and still angry, but in a different way now, directed inward.

"And also… he raped me." Loki shuts his eyes, because this is the hardest part to talk about. He knows he kind of owes it to Tony, at least to tell him this much, but he hates it, hates thinking about it, the way Thanos' hands roved over his body like he owned him. "Three times—once in upstate New York and twice in Toronto… I—" His voice trails off, and he's staring at his feet, interlocking his fingers together. "I did _nothing _to stop him, Tony. _Nothing. _I let him fuck me like an animal, like his _property, _I allowed it to happen—"

"I'll kill him," Tony interrupts, viciously, his voice a scythe in the air. "I'll fucking _murder _that psychotic asshole—"

"Would you _stop _saying that?" Loki snaps, frustration making him pull his fingers through his hair, and Tony's whole face shadows over.

"Why the hell are you defending him all the fucking time? It's like you _want _him to get out, like you _want _him back in your life—"

"The only person I want in my life is you." Loki says it angrily, nearly yelling, but it shuts Tony up long enough for him to shut his eyes and stop seeing red. "When I was in Toronto, you were all I thought of. When he tried to get me back with him, I risked losing my life to tell him I wasn't going to leave you under any circumstances. I have not stopped loving you, Anthony Stark, not since I was taken, not since I came home. This morning, you hesitated as to whether you wanted to stay with me or not. I would have you know that I love you enough to let you go, if you so desire." He's shaking, his arms folded, teeth clenched.

Tony blinks, once, looking very much a different man from the dark, angry character he was a second ago. He opens his mouth to speak, but Loki cuts him off:

"You also mentioned that you fuck up often, and wish you could make up for it. Let me tell you, you have no cause to feel that way. _You _didn't voluntarily seek out Thanos and tell him, 'Please, kidnap me, I wish you would take me as far from here as possible'. _You're _not the one who has let himself be abused twice in a row now, by the same man; you don't—"

"Shut up," Tony says, and before Loki can protest he's pressing him back against the sofa cushions and kissing him fiercely, almost hungrily, like he has something to prove. He reaches up and drags his thumb down Loki's jaw, over the pulse of his throat, stopping his hand at the collar of his shirt. Loki's hand comes up and touches Tony's wrist, at his radial artery, and his breath quickens exponentially. Tony skims his tongue across Loki's lower lip, and the younger lets out a light sigh, shifting his legs upwards and curling his toes against the denim of Tony's jeans.

When Tony pulls away, his lips are parted and he's trembling, head tilted like he can't quite figure out how to feel about the situation. He reaches out and traces his fingers over Loki's eyelids, and his touch feels like a moth landing on his face. "You may love me enough to let me go," he says, voice hoarse and thick, "but I love you too much to leave."

And _fuck, _it's the best thing he's said to him since before January. Loki feels a tiny burst of heat erupt in his heart and travel downwards, all the way through his stomach and thighs and into his feet. A small smile tugs the corners of his lips upwards, and he leans forward and kisses Tony's cheek, the tip of his nose, the place on his chin where his goatee starts. Tony smiles too, his eyes shining, and he says:

"Fucking stupid romantic shit," and they both laugh, and Tony reaches down and takes Loki's free hand and kisses it, and then his arm, and then his mouth, and he pushes his hips up against Loki's, creating friction between them. Loki whines, soft in the back of his throat, and Tony carefully tugs his shirt up, exposing the flat plane of his chest and the solid lines of his stomach. He skirts his thumb over the barely-exposed scar, and Loki shivers, eyes shutting.

"Holy fuck," he breathes, and Tony unzips his jeans and tugs them down and fucking _licks _the scar and _shitshitshit _Loki hadn't realized how sensitive it is until now—

"I want to stay with you," Tony blurts, his mouth still hovering warm over Loki's skin, and he looks down, emerald eyes questioning, fingers still tangled in Tony's short dark hair.

"I mean here," he clarifies, shaking now too, like it's a contagious disease. "As a couple. I've thought about it, Shakespeare. We don't—we don't work without each other." He moves slightly up, so that his chest is on Loki's stomach, and Loki can feel the hard edges of the electromagnet pressing into his skin. "Don't let me go," he whispers.

For an answer Loki grabs him by the shoulders, hauling him up to his mouth and kissing him, wrapping his legs around his waist, marking _mine _against his lips as his fingers snake downwards to pull Tony's shirt off.

/

Amora has never robbed a bank in her life.

She thinks it's beneath her—which is ironic, considering the fact that she worked first as a stripper and then as a barmaid for three years before meeting Skurge. (No, _Thanos, _and she's having a hard time keeping track of that, and she thinks maybe when she gets him out she won't be able to call him by his proper name.)

She thinks he probably won't care, anyway.

Despite the fact that she's never robbed a bank, she knows how to do it—Thanos taught her, when they first got together. _'Just in case you ever need to,' _he'd told her, drawing up a scaled model of a bank and tapping points of entry and approximations of where the vaults might be. _'There's only one thing you need to watch out for, and that's security guards. If the bank doesn't have them in the front, you should be okay. But don't bother trying to steal from a bank with guards in the lobby. That's fucking impossible. Everything else is easy enough—go in with your face covered and the gun cocked, tell everyone to get down, and ask the closest cashier for the most money possible. Try to bring a bag.' _

So now she's standing outside a Capitol One bank, her hands shaking, the gun loaded and ready in her palms, the bag across her shoulders, her mask pulled down. The only reason she's even doing this is for Skur—Thanos—because his bail is so high. Yesterday, after she'd stopped texting Loki, she'd called the Manhattan Police Department and asked for the location of Thanos. They'd told her what jail he was in, and when she requested his bail they gave it to her, laughing snidely, like they knew how poor she was, how she couldn't even afford to break her boyfriend out.

Well. Fuck that shit.

She bursts through the front doors of the bank and screams, "This is a robbery!" and immediately feels foolish because everyone whirls around to stare at her like she's come onto the stage at the wrong time. But then a cashier lets out a shriek and faints, and the customers instinctively react to that, eyes trailing to her gun and then going wide with fear.

"On the floor!" Amora snarls, a little more confidently, and is pleased when they immediately do as she asks, covering their heads. She walks up to the teller, waving the gun (_god she hopes they won't find out it's not actually ready to be fired_), and demands one thousand dollars. It's enough to get Thanos out of jail with a bit left over for food and travel—because after this she thinks they're going to _need _to move to Canada—and the cashier almost throws it in her face, looking like she can't decide whether to vomit or cry.

"Just take it and go," she wails, and Amora thrusts it in her bag and walks out of the bank, holding the gun up until she's back in the street.

Then, casually, she removes her mask and ties her hair back from her face and unloads the gun, slipping the bullets in her pocket and the gun itself into the bag, and she hails a taxi. "Manhattan Detention Complex," she says, and the taxi driver goes off without even looking back to see her face.

By the time they arrive, it's almost noon, and the sun beats down hot and angry on the back of her neck as she goes inside the facilities. A guard at the entrance asks her what she needs, and she tells him, and his eyebrows go up in surprise, like he wasn't expecting her to say Thanos' name. He leads her down the hall and tells her to wait, and she sits, her heart hammering, the money lying heavy at the bottom of her bag.

The guard goes out to the courtyard, where the inmates are gathered for their daily exercises. Thanos is standing in the far right corner, picking his nails with a dirty toothpick and staring blankly at the wall opposite him. One of his more boisterous cellmates—the red-haired one, the one who all the guards privately think has a secret stash of donuts hidden somewhere under his bed—is trying to entice him into a game of basketball, and he's ignoring him completely.

"Come on, Skurge," his cellmate is saying when the guard walks up. "Just five minutes. It can be you and me against, let's say, Hogun and Victor."

Thanos shoots him a sharp look. "_No_," he says, and then, before the guard can open his mouth, Victor walks up, with his band of criminals trailing behind him as usual.

"What's the matter?" he says in an irritatingly high voice. "Little Thanatos doesn't want to go against me?"

"Don't fucking call me that," Thanos warns softly. His voice is dangerous, but Victor ignores him completely in favor of sliding his hand across his shoulder.

"Come on, it's just one game," Victor says, and Thanos physically _shudders, _and the guard steps in then, watching them, wondering what in the hell is going on.

"Thanos," he says, and Thanos looks at him, and his eyes are gray, dead, like the sky before a winter storm.

"What."

"You have someone here to bail you out. A woman. Blonde, I think, although her hair does have some brown in it—"

"Okay," Thanos interrupts, pushing himself off the wall. The guard leads him through the crowd of inmates, and as they are walking Victor screams after him:

"That's right, Thanos, go home to mommy!"

"Shut the fuck up, you cunt," Thanos snarls, but he doesn't say it loud enough for Victor to hear. They walk inside the jail silently, and the guard leads Thanos down the hall to where Amora is waiting for him. She stands when she sees him, her mouth dropping open involuntarily at how rail thin he is, how _wasted _he looks, and there's a beat of hesitation before Thanos snaps:

"Well, for Christ's sake, Amora, it's still _me_," and then she runs forward, throwing her arms around his neck, burying her face against his collarbone.

"Skurge," she says, quietly, against his skin, and he pulls his fingers through her hair and mumbles her name and presses their foreheads together, squeezing her shirt collar in his hands, shutting his eyes. They stand together for a while, both of them with a single tear tracking down their hollow cheeks, and then Amora hands in the money and signs some papers and they get Thanos' things and walk out.

"Oh, god," she says, over and over, as they walk down the street together. "You're here. It's you."

"Physically, I suppose," he says, but he doesn't clarify what he means and she doesn't push.

"How'd you have the money to get me out, anyway?" he asks after a while.

"I robbed a bank," she says, grinning up at him, and he laughs, the sound unfamiliar to him coming from his lips, sudden and harsh like a gunshot. He squeezes her hand and kisses her cheek, and he thinks, _maybe this whole love thing is okay. _

They are almost at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Boulevard when a car pulls up alongside them, sleek and unfamiliar. The passenger window rolls down, and a blond man inside yells at them:

"Thanos? Amora?"

Thanos nods, wetting his lips with his tongue, and then the blond guy pulls out a fucking _gun _and oh _shit_, what the _hell? _Amora instantly reaches for the gun in her bag and the bullets in her pocket, but the man in the car shakes his head, waving the gun around.

"Don't," he says. "I will not shoot unless I have to—although it would give me great pleasure to put a bullet in your heart, Thanos." There is something familiar about his speech patterns, and his voice, and it takes Thanos a second to register that _this _is Loki's older brother Thor, who threatened him once two years ago, warned him that if he ever hurt Loki again he'd kill him.

A slice of fear shoots through Thanos' heart, and he takes a step backwards. "How the fuck did you find us?" he asks.

Thor hesitates for a fraction of a second before shaking his head. "It is no matter," he says. "Now that you are out of jail, I must know—are you going to harm Loki? Because if the answer is 'yes' then I will shoot you right now."

Thanos holds his arms to the sides. "Kill me, if that's what you want," he says coldly. Amora grabs his arm, her eyes filled suddenly with terror.

"You kill him and you'll have to kill me too," she says viciously. "Because I am_ not _living without him."

Thor doesn't say anything, and Amora starts talking fast, like she thinks one or both of them will shoot before she can finish her sentence. "We're moving to Toronto," she says. "Forever, okay? There's nothing left here for me or for him, so we're just going off to Canada; we're going to make a fresh start and we'll never bother you or your brother again, we swear—right, Skurge?" She nudges him lightly, and he nods once, his eyes on the ground. (Really, he doesn't care what happens, just so long as he doesn't have to go back to jail again.)

Thor hesitates some more, then puts the gun down on the seat beside him. "Fine," he says. "But just know that if I ever see either of you again, I will murder you without blinking." He pulls off into traffic again, and his eyes stay on their figures until he's turned a corner out of their sight.

Amora takes Thanos' hand in hers again, quietly slipping the gun back into the bag. "Seriously," she says. "Let's move to Canada, okay? Just you and me. We don't even have to live in Toronto, we could live anywhere—Manitoba, Quebec, somewhere in Saskatchewan… I just want to stay with you."

He doesn't answer her, but his lips pull up into a tiny, barely visible smile, and so she smiles too, and brings his face close to hers so she can kiss him. _I love you, _she mouths when they pull away, and he hails a taxi and keeps her close against him for the whole ride, her face pressed against the worn material of his shirt.

**A/N: This is the penultimate chapter—but it reads like a final chapter, or at least I think it does. I kind of want to make an epilogue/last chapter, but I'm not sure. Would you guys want to read an extra chapter, or is this enough? **

**Also, sorry if it seems rushed, I was reading a slightly awful story earlier and it threw me off. **


	25. You Built Your Tower, But Called Me Home

**June 2014**

**Post-graduation**

There is a celebratory party at Steve and Phil's house following the graduation ceremony, and Tony drags Loki to it, promising they'll stay for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes at the most. Loki just smiles and shakes his head and goes along, pressing himself into Tony's passenger seat and leaning his head out the window, allowing the wind to whip his hair as they speed down the Interstate. Rock music blares on the radio, and Tony sings along, loud and obnoxious and off-key as _hell. _Occasionally he nudges Loki, encouraging him to sing too, and Loki laughs and sings a few lines if he knows the song, trailing his fingers over the back of Tony's hand where it's resting against his seat.

It's been three months since they made up, and Tony still has a hard time believing Loki is _his _now, actually and irrevocably _part of him. _They've been spending most of their time not in class in the apartment, laying around, eating or talking or having sex, like they're trying to make up for all the time they lost. They don't even argue as often as they used to—it's like everything that's happened between them has evened out some (okay, a considerable amount) of the tension that was hanging over their shoulders for so long.

Loki sees their lives as split into three parts: the first was high school, before their senior year; the second was college, before the kidnapping; and the third is now, after they've _finally _talked and gotten it all out in the open and managed to push past the barricade.

Sometimes he wonders what might have happened if he hadn't managed to tell Tony the truth; if they'd be here now, pulling off at the exit for Steve and Phil's place, Foreigner slamming into their ears, Tony's mouth open, head tilted back as he belts out the lyrics:

"_Feels like the first time! Feels like the very first time!" _

He wonders, but he can't say for sure, and honestly, it doesn't matter—it _shouldn't _matter. Like Tony, Loki is shocked that they're actually together, without worrying about whether one of them will be packing up that night, but mostly he's just happy. He's fucking happier than he can remember being in a long time, and when Tony pulls up to the red light at the corner of Steve's street, Loki impulsively grabs his jaw and turns his head for a kiss.

"Was that because you want me or was it to shut me up?" Tony asks when they pull apart, and he's laughing, and Loki laughs too, free and uninhibited.

"A little bit of both," he says, grinning, and Tony rolls his eyes as he turns the car.

"I should just throw you out right now and not take you to the party—or give you the surprise later."

"Surprise?" Loki asks, his curiosity piqued, but Tony holds a finger to his lips, shaking his head and resuming his god awful singing.

Steve and Phil's party is raging when they get there, and it looks like the entire graduating class of 2014 is crammed into the tiny lawn in front of their house. Natasha and Clint are holding Solo cups of beer and leaning against each other, watching with obvious amusement as Thor—_Thor, _of all people—tries to stand on his head in the grass with no balance. He falls over when he sees Loki and Tony approaching, and everyone laughs as he scrambles hastily to his feet and runs forward, throwing his arms around his brother.

"It is a night for celebration, is it not, brother?" he asks loudly, and Loki pats his shoulder, still laughing.

"That it is," he agrees, and Thor looks like he might cry, and Loki remembers how everything's changing between them, too, now that Thanos is permanently gone and Thor no longer views Tony as a threat, or an idiot, or anything else.

They go inside and Steve greets them, offering cheese sticks dipped in salsa. The music inside is nearly deafening in volume, and the loud chatter from the former students crowded around the table barely drowns out whatever autotuned crap Steve has chosen to play. Loki and Tony sit on the sofa together, cheese sticks in hand, and Tony swirls one around in sauce and feeds it to Loki, like he's a bird, and Loki physically _cannot _stop smiling tonight, the swell in his chest growing until he thinks he's going to burst.

He ends up staying for forty-five minutes, because Tony is incapable of shutting up when he's around Rhodey or Bruce, and both of them sought Tony out after about ten minutes. Loki doesn't mind, though; he rests his head on Tony's shoulder and half dozes in the warmth of the room and the feeling of beer settling like a low fire through his body. When he wakes up, it's because Tony's nudging him softly, his hand halfway down a Doritos bag, a huge smile on his face.

"Ready for the surprise?" he asks, and Loki nods, and Tony grabs his hand and stands up with him and they walk out, back to Tony's car, awash in the moonlight of a now fully-dark sky.

"Be safe, kids!" a very drunk Clint screams after them as they drive off. "Wear a condom!" and Loki glances in the rearview mirror just in time to see Natasha positively _pelting _him with those giant cookies Phil made.

"Oh my god," Loki says, chuckling low in his throat, as Tony turns onto the Interstate. But he's not heading in the direction of their apartment, he's going south, and after a bit Loki looks at him, questioningly, and Tony grins, looking simultaneously proud and a little hesitant, like he's not sure Loki will like what he has to say.

"I've decided that we're going to Coney fucking Island," he says, draping his arm out the car window, and oh _fuck, _that's one of Loki's favorite places—he hasn't been since he was seventeen, but he'll never forget the smell of food cooking alongside the salt of the beach, and the sound of the seagulls cawing, and the way every ride he went on made his stomach bottom out until he was staggering dizzily for half an hour down the boardwalk.

He leans over and mouths for a second at Tony's jaw, and Tony almost loses control of the car, a surprised expression crossing his face. "What was that for?"

"You wouldn't believe how utterly thankful I am for you," is what Loki says, and this is the most corny, sappy shit he's ever spewed, but it makes Tony smile, face turned towards the stars and the taillights, and it's enough.

They get to Coney Island about an hour later and immediately Loki's heading for Nathan's Famous, his feet thudding on the Riegelmann Boardwalk, Tony's hand clutched hot in his. They order two hot dogs, covered in mustard and ketchup and slathered with relish, and they eat facing the beach, their feet dangling over the railings on the boardwalk. The water looks eerie at night, sparkling with the raw moonlight, and Loki watches the tide as it comes up, spraying feet before receding into the darkness.

After their hot dogs, they head down to the beach itself, toes sinking into the still-hot sand, shirts and shorts whipping in the high wind that rushes in at them. They sit together nearly at the water's edge, and sand crawls between Loki's feet, onto his skin, and he doesn't care. He rests his head on Tony's shoulder and Tony tilts his face up and kisses him, licking a few spots of ketchup off his upper lip.

"I love you," he says at length, quietly, seriously, his mouth less than an inch from Loki's.

"I love you too," Loki murmurs, threading his fingers through Tony's hair.

Tony's eyes meet his, dark and lovely and close, so close. His mouth moves for a few seconds, opening and shutting, and then he's reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out a ring, with an emerald set in the center. It glitters in the moonlight, and Loki barely has time to stare at it before Tony is asking:

"Marry me, okay? I can't live without you, Shakespeare," and something tugs in Loki's chest and he thinks he's going to faint or cry or _something _overly dramatic but he grabs Tony's hands and says:

"Yes," his voice choked and thick, and Tony slides the ring over his finger and in the background a few people are clapping, and the ocean crashes around them, waves softly hitting the tips of their feet.

The kisses taste like beer, like summer and fresh starts and _hope, _a concept so foreign to Loki he can scarcely grasp it. He grabs Tony's shoulders, kissing him again and again, and then they're laughing against each other's mouths, tears running salty between their lips, as somewhere in the distance "Kashmir" begins to play.

**A/N: Well that turned into a fluff fest that I wasn't expecting. **

**Still, did you guys like it? I'm hoping you did, because this is the last chapter, officially, and next I will be moving on to a different story in a different setting. **

**Thanks **_**so much **_**to everyone who has read both this and its prequel; I love all of you more than I can express in words and I kind of want to take everyone to Coney Island now even though I live halfway across the country from it. **

**Cookies for all!**


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